


Anatidae

by kellylikescats



Category: Bones
Genre: Abuse, Duckling fluff, I had to make Sweets a few years younger than he actually is, Major Sweets and Booth Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6753031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellylikescats/pseuds/kellylikescats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six year old Lance Sweets was never removed from his foster home, and a decade later, seventeen year old Lance gets tangled up in the middle of Booth and Bone's murder investigation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just so everyone knows, this story is discontinued and I probably won't be adding any more chapters ever so just go in knowing that and don't get too attached lmao.

Lance played with the bottom button of his shirt nervously. He tried to focus on the lecture Mr. Finley was giving at the front of the classroom, but he kept finding his mind wandering to guilt. He shouldn't have left Dalia home alone today. His foster sister had been sick for four days now, and he had stayed home with her for the first three days—but today he could tell she was acting like she was still sick just because she didn't want to go back to school.  
He just couldn't miss another day of classes. The grading period was about to end, and missing classes meant bad grades, and bad grades meant no scholarships, and no scholarships meant—  
Lance realized he was grinding his teeth and unclenched his jaw. He turned his eyes back to the teacher.  
Dalia should be fine though. It was one day home alone. He had locked all the doors and windows before he left, and he'd made sure she understood not to touch the stove or open the door for anyone. She was smart. She would be fine.  
He briefly considered asking the office if he could use their phone to call home and check on her. Then he realized the ladies up in the office might get concerned about a six year old being alone and gossip about it, and when people gossiped, CPS got called, and when CPS got called—  
He was grinding his teeth again.  
Lance rubbed his face with his hand, trying to keep his mind off of Dalia. He really had no reason to worry, but he was obsessively protective of her. She was probably fine. Definitely fine.  
"Lance?"  
He jerked his head up to face Mr. Finley, who was looking at him expectantly. Lance's heart dropped when he realized everyone's attention was on him and he had no idea what he'd just been asked. He gulped. "I'm sorry, I—"  
Mr. Finley smiled at him kindly. Out of all of Lance's teachers, Mr. Finley was by far his favorite; he had a lot of patience for Lance's tendency to get caught up on little things and completely zone out.  
"I asked you to read a passage out of the book. Do you have it?" he asked.  
Lance's mind flashed to the kitchen table this morning, while he set down Dalia's breakfast and noticed he'd left his psychology book out last night. He hadn't grabbed it before he left. "No, I—uh—I don't have it. I'm sorry."  
Mr. Finley just gave him an admonishing look and moved on to ask somebody else on the other side of the classroom.  
Lance ducked his head and glanced at his watch. He noted with relief that the bell was supposed to ring in a few minutes. Lunch followed this class, so maybe he could ask to use Mr. Finley's phone. Mr. Finley used to be nosy about the abnormalities of Lance's life, especially since he was advisor of the chess club and the AP psychology teacher, so he and Lance were around each other a lot—but eventually he had learned to just let Lance be.  
When the bell rang, Lance waited until everyone had filed out of the room to walk up to Mr. Finley's desk. "Do you mind if I use your phone?" he asked.  
Mr. Finley glanced up from his computer and smiled. "Go for it, Lance."  
Lance took the hand piece off the receiver and dialed his home phone number. After a few rings, he started to chew on his lip. Four rings… No answer. Five… Lance reminded himself not to grind his teeth. Voicemail.  
Lance put the phone back on its base slowly. "Uh… thanks," he mumbled, turning away.  
He went to his locker to switch out his books before walking over to the cafeteria, where he grabbed a chicken sandwich and water bottle. He got the same food every day, but it was free and edible, so he couldn't really complain.  
Lance located his friends and crumpled down into a chair at their table. His best friend, Michael, lifted one eyebrow. "What's your problem?"  
Lance shrugged but didn't respond. Instead he asked, "Can you give me a ride home today? I need to get home pretty quickly."  
Michael looked like he wanted to inquire more about why, but he just nodded. "Sure thing, dude." He took a bite out of his chicken sandwich. "So can you come to the movie on Saturday?"  
Lance had said "maybe" to that question way too many times already; he felt guilty for not giving his friends a definite answer. He thought about how things had been going at home lately. He could probably get away with being out on Saturday. "Yeah."  
Michael looked surprised. "Seriously? Sick! I'll pick you up at noon!"  
Lance looked down at his sandwich and picked at the crust. He forced himself to smile.

.~.

When Michael dropped Lance off, he put the car in park and said, "Hey, everything's alright, right? Like… things are… things are good?" He looked like he was trying to be casual, but he was failing horribly.  
Lance grinned at him. "Everything's fine, dude." He pretended not to understand why Michael was asking. He grabbed his backpack and slammed the car door.  
Michael drove away, and Lance hopped up the steps to his front porch. He stuck his key in the handle and turned it. He realized with a jolt of anxiety that the door was already unlocked. His heart dropped into his stomach. Had he accidentally left it unlocked? No, he'd definitely triple checked that it was locked before he left.  
Gulping, Lance pushed the door open and poked his head inside. The TV was on, but nobody was sitting on the couch. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He glanced into the kitchen then continued into the living room.  
"Shit… shit shit shit!" Lance sprinted up the staircase two at a time, looking in every bedroom, but not seeing Dalia anywhere. "Dalia!" His heart pounded, and sweat pricked up on his forehead. "Dalia! Where are you! This isn't funny!"  
After searching the entire upstairs, he stopped at the top of the stairs. He took two deep breaths then started to walk down the steps as slowly and calmly as he could. She was probably just out in the backyard, playing.  
He went into the laundry room and continued out the next door to the backyard. It was empty. He was about to run inside to call someone (Who? He didn't know. Anyone.) when he realized that the gate was open.  
Feeling his heart rate increase, Lance walked through the gate to look out at the empty fields behind the house. No Dalia anywhere. He felt like all the oxygen had abandoned his lungs, and his legs started to quiver beneath him. He took two slow steps backward then quickly turned and ran into the house.  
He was just getting into the living room when the front door opened. His hopes got high for a moment when he thought that it could be Dahlia, but they plummeted when Melissa, his foster mother walked in. She put her keys on the hook beside the door and her purse on the ground. When she set her eyes on Lance, she scowled. "What's got you all worked up?" she asked.  
Lance opened his mouth to respond, but he found that he couldn't speak. He swallowed then slowly mumbled, "Um, I…" He made eye contact with Melissa and felt himself start shaking. "I can't… find… Dalia."  
She blinked once. "What?"  
Lance looked down at the ground and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I left her here alone," he whispered, almost quietly enough that he wasn't sure if she would hear him. "She was gone when I got home from school."  
Melissa stared at him, her lips slowly forming a thin line. Lance knew her well enough not to be fooled into thinking her silence meant she wasn't upset. Sure enough, a few moments later, she burst forward, shoving Lance back. He stumbled back and caught himself on the edge of the couch before he could fall. "Are you insane?" she shouted.  
Lance opened his mouth, but he couldn't think of a reply.  
"Goddammit! You idiot!" She spun around, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket.  
Lance couldn't tell who she was calling, so he could only assume it was Frank, his foster father. He decided to take the opportunity to slink away while her back was turned. He disappeared into the room he and Dalia shared. Sitting down on his bed, he put his face in his hands and wondered how he could have possibly screwed this up more.


	2. Chapter 2

(2 months later)

Temperance Brennan woke up to the sound of her phone ringing. She rolled over and was less than surprised to see the words "Agent Booth" on her phone screen. She experienced annoyance at being woken up and excitement at the prospect of a case at the same time.

"Brennan," she answered.

"Hey, Bones," Booth's voice came through the phone. She could tell he wasn't thrilled to be awake at five in the morning. "We got a body. It's out on a field that nobody can agree belongs to Maryland or DC, so it's ours, baby!"

She replied, "Alright. Are you picking me up?"

"Mhm. I'll be there in ten."

Sure enough, Booth was knocking on Temperance's door nine minutes later, and half an hour later, she was pulling on gloves at the crime scene. Booth followed behind her with his pad and pen. "It's pretty small," Booth remarked, grimacing.

Temperance nodded. "Definitely too small to be a healthy adult." She crouched down beside Cam. "Female, African-American." She looked at the little girl's pelvis and mouth. "Probably as young as four. Maybe as old as seven."

Cam weighed in, "I think she was malnourished. She may be older than we think."

Booth frowned, making notes on his notepad. "She was starved to death?" he grumbled, feeling himself get angry.

Cam shrugged. "Or she was homeless or living in poverty. The undernourishment wasn't what killed her though."

Brennan nodded and added, "She's right. There was some serious trauma to her head and neck. There's not much more I can tell until the flesh is off." She stood from her crouch and started pulling her gloves off. She allowed her professional demeanor to slip for a second as she told Booth, "I hate when it's a kid."

Booth set a hand on her back. "I know. Me too."

.~.

Booth hovered uncomfortably on the platform while he waited to get more information from the squints. He kept his arms crossed whenever he wasn't writing something down on his notepad.

Angela skipped up the steps, carrying a file folder and her sketch pad. She grimaced at the small body. "She's so small," she said sadly.

"Probably no more than seven years old," Cam added while Brennan glanced up long enough to see who had joined them.

Cam took the file folder from Angela and took x-rays out of it. She passed them over to Brennan, who held them up to the light. "She seems to have experienced frequent fractures to her right arm, wrist, and several of her ribs." She frowned, lowering the x-ray. "This is often indicative of abuse," she murmured.

"Dammit," Booth grumbled. It was bad enough that they had to work a case with a kid, but now he was also going to have to face that her life was probably less than happy before she died.

Angela cleared her throat and turned her sketchpad for everyone to see. "Well, I drew her." The face of a beautiful girl stared back at them. She was smiling, and Angela had drawn her natural hair pulled into pigtails. "And I got a hit." Angela went over to the computer and pulled up the girl's missing person's profile. "Her name is Dalia Lane. She was seven years old and living her in DC."

Booth unfolded his arms and pulled a pen out of his pocket. Sighing, he said, "Alright. Give me her parents' info and I'll go grill them."

"She was in the foster system. She went missing from her foster home two months ago. I already sent her foster parents' information to your phone." Angela closed the computer window and turned back to the team, giving them a sympathetic look, before leaving the platform to return to her office.

Booth took a moment to make sure he had himself together. It was easy to lose composure when working on a case with children, especially abused ones. After checking his phone to see that he got all the information from Angela, he shouted, "Hey, Bones! Wanna come with to question the foster parents?"

Brennan nodded while she pulled off her gloves and tossed them into the trash can. "Zach, call me when the bones are clean," she commanded. "Anybody call me with new findings."

"Her official cause of death was asphyxiation," Brennan said abruptly after they had made it to the car and were headed out of the parking structure. She was looking straight forward at the road ahead of them, showing no emotion.

Booth glanced over at her, frowning. "Are you telling me that someone strangled her to death?"

"Most likely, yes." Bones sighed and continued to look unattached. "I have very little doubt they knew exactly what they were doing."

"Dammit." Booth slammed the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. "Do you think it was the foster parents?"

Brennan gave him a warning look. "That's pure conjecture, Booth. You know I don't do that."

Booth sighed and remedied his question: "Do you think her current foster family was abusing her? You said she showed signs of abuse."

Bones shook her head. "No. None of her injuries were recent enough."

Booth let out a sigh of relief, and Brennan looked over at him questioningly, but she remained silent for the remainder of the car ride.

.~.

Booth knocked on the door firmly, placing himself slightly in front of Bones out of habit.

The house has obviously been very nice at some point, but the yard and exterior had gone without care long enough that it just looked ramshackle. The lawn was overgrown, and the grey paint had started to chip away. It was either the home of someone who didn't care or cared too much about other things.

The door opened slowly. A man wearing a suspicious expression stood in the doorway. He was shorter than Booth but taller than Brennan. He had on a mechanic's shirt that exposed a small strip of the bottom of his belly, and the top of his head had begun to thin. He looked between the two partners a few times before saying, "What else do you people want?"

Booth pulled back his jacket to expose his badge. "Frank Johnson? I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth from the FBI and this is my partner, Temperance Brennan. We're here about Dalia."

The man grunted. "I figured you were." He moved aside to let them in. As the moved into the entryway, he asked, "So does you being here mean you've found something?"

Booth looked at Brennan for a split second. "Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson, we found Dalia's remains this morning. We believe she was murdered."

Frank muttered, "Shit..." Then he motioned for them to follow him into the living room. "Where... Where was she?"

Booth remained standing while Frank sat on the couch, and Bones chose to stay standing beside Booth. Booth said, "Her body was in a corn field on the state line. We need to talk to you a little about Dalia so we can investigate who did this too her. Is your wife home?"

Frank seemed to remember suddenly that he was married. "Oh yeah shit. Melissa!"

The woman who walked into the living room was taller than her husband, dressed in jeans and a blazer, with perfectly curled hair. "Who are they?" she asked, a bite in her voice. Booth didn't have to look over to see that Bones was sizing her up.

"They're from the FBI," Frank told her. "Dalia's dead."

Melissa seemed to take a moment to register what he'd said. When she finally turned to Booth she said, "Do you know who did it?"

"No," Booth told her, pulling his notebook out of his pocket. "That's why we're here actually, to talk to you, see if there's anything you know that could help us."

Melissa looked at him critically. "We've only had her a few months, and it's not like she had enemies or anything. She was seven."

Bones interjected, "Do you know why Dalia was in the system?"

Melissa pursed her lips, fixing her hair. She thought about it for a moment. "Her father was unknown, and she was removed from her mother in the hospital after she was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. She's been in the system her entire life."

"May I look in her room? Just while you're speaking with Agent Booth?" Bones asked suddenly.

Booth looked over at her questioningly. She had never been one to think she could tell much by looking at anything but the bones.

Melissa waved her hand toward the hallway. "Second door on the right. She shared it with our other foster child, Lance."

Booth watched his partner walk down the hallway curiously, but he decided to wait until he was done with Frank and Melissa before asking her what was going on. He turned back to them. "Tell me about the day Dalia went missing. She was home alone, correct?"

Frank nodded. "Lance told us he would stay home with her, but he left her and went to school anyway. Neither of us could miss work."

A kid not taking the opportunity to miss school? "And was Lance the first person to come home?"

Melissa nodded. "I found him running around the house shouting her name."

Booth scribbled down a few things to ask Lance when he got the chance. "We know that Dalia had experienced abuse in some of her past homes"-he noticed that Frank tensed up and made a note about it-"Has anyone ever threatened her since she's been here?" The couple both shook their heads. "Have you had any reason to believe someone might want to harm her?"

When they both shrugged, Booth sighed and stuck his pen into his jacket. "Alright, I'm gonna go check on my partner."

Melissa grabbed her purse from the couch and was halfway out the door before she'd finished saying, "I need to get to work."

Booth waked to the bedroom and peered in. Bones was standing in the middle of it, frowning as she looked around. ""What are you thinking?" Booth asked as he moved into the room.

She shook her head. "It could be nothing but..." She paused. "I was in the system when I was a teenager"-Booth opened his mouth to reply but she kept going-"and when you move homes they give you a plastic bag to put all your stuff in. So you don't get to really have a lot of stuff."

"Okay?" Booth prompted her to explain what probably made totally sense in her head but had clicked for him yet.

"Look at Lance's side of the room."

Booth looked around. The left side of the room was cluttered with books and papers. There were chess pieces scattered across the desk that sat next to the bed. Then he looked at the other side of the room. The bed hosted two stuffed animals, and there was one book and a box of crayons on the desk. He understood that Lance had considerably more stuff than the average foster kid. "You think he's been here a while?"

"Longer than a while," Bones answered. "Long enough to think he wouldn't have to worry about ever fitting anything into a plastic bag again."

A voice cleared its throat and Booth looked over to see Frank hovering in the doorway. "Lance has been with us since he was five. Almost thirteen years now."

"And you never adopted him?" Booth questioned. "How did he manage to stay here so long?"

Frank shrugged. "Well his father relinquished rights when he left him at a hospital, but his mother never did. We would have to track her down to be able to adopt Lance and... well, his worker never tried to put him anywhere else so we just didn't bother."

Bones eyebrows pushed closer together, and Booth could tell she was thinking hard about something. As soon as Frank walked away, Booth asked her what was up, but she just shook her head. "It's nothing," she said, "I'm overthinking."

"Well I don't know about you," Booth said as he pulled his car keys out of his pocket. "But I really want to talk to this Lance kid."

.~.

Lance went to the closest public high school. The last hour of classes was nearly about to end when they got there, and the office secretary informed them that "the Sweets boy" usually has chess club after school on Tuesdays, so they waited until the final bell had rung to go find him.

They walked into Room 30 and looked around. Chess club didn't seem to be very popular, to Bones' disappointment. A few kids huddled around two chess boards, demonstrating strategies but not playing any real games yet. An aging teacher sat behind his desk, grading papers and glancing up every once in a while to see how the kids were getting on.

Everyone turned to watch the pair walk in. Booth walked up to the teacher while Bones went to see what strategies the kids were using. He flashed his badge. "I'm Agent Booth with FBI, that's my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan."

The teacher stood and went to shake Booth's hand. "Roger Finley. What can I do for you?"

"We're looking for Lance Sweets."

Mr. Finley looked shocked. "He hasn't gotten here yet, probably will in a few minutes. What do you need him for?" He sounded concerned, and Booth was about to ask if he knew the boy personally before the door opened and he turned to see who it was.

A boy walked in slowly, catching sight of Booth and frowning. He was a little short for a seventeen year old, gawky, with thick and curly hair that made his head look larger than it actually was. He was holding two textbooks, which both slipped out of his hands before the door had even closed behind him. He crouched down to pick them up, blushing.

Booth walked over and, as the boy stood again, asked, "You Lance Sweets?"

Lance nodded, obviously holding his breath.

"Can I talk to you out in the hallway?"

The boy nodded jerkily and turned to walk back out the door. He looked like he was steeling himself while also trying to hide in the wall. "Are you here about Dalia?"

Booth nodded, flashing his badge. "I'm Agent Booth from the FBI. I'm sorry to have to tell you this but-"

"She's dead," Lance said quietly. He was stumbling over his words. "You wouldn't be here if she wasn't." He looked down at his shoes and bit his lip.

Booth knew that he was dealing with a smart kid. He seemed timid and withdrawn, but he was definitely brilliant. "Yes, I'm sorry." He watched as Lance made a movement with his shoulder but didn't say anything. "Can you tell me about the day she went missing?"

Lance recounted the events of the day, starting with the explanation of why he's left her alone and working his way to his foster mother coming home and taking over. After he'd finished, he said, "Everyone says it's my fault, because I left her alone."

"That's not true," Booth said.

He was thinking of something else to add, but Bones walked out the door. "There are some truly brilliant children in that room right now," she said. "Not as brilliant as me at that age but..." She trailed, off understanding that she had interrupted a tense moment. She looked at Lance. "I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan."

Lance nodded in acknowledgment. "I'm Lance," he responded, almost in a whisper.

Brennan was staring at him, and Booth was waiting for her to say what she was thinking, but instead she said, "Lance, may I touch your face?"

"What?" Lance looked taken aback. He made eye contact with Booth and raised his eyebrows as if to ask, 'is she serious?' Booth shrugged and gave him a look that replied, 'Just go with it.' Lance turned back to Bones. "Yeah, sure, I guess."

Bones reached forward. Lance drew back a bit but then forced himself to stay put as she rested her fingers on his cheek. She ran them along that side of his face, pressing down slightly. She seemed to be focusing on one spot in particular near the top of his left cheekbone. After a few moments, she pulled away, looking somber. "Thank you," she said. After a brief pause, she added, "You should really stop grinding your teeth or you'll cause lasting damage."

"Bones," Booth growled.

Lance blushed and looked down. "Yeah. I know." He smiled a little.

Booth decided it was time to get out of here before Bones could do anything to upset the kid. He slipped Lance his card and said to call him if any more information came up; then he hustled Bones out to the car.

"What was that?" He demanded as soon as her car door was shut. She looked at him with an uncomprehending expression. He sighed. "You can't just go around touching kids' faces."

She shrugged. "I asked permission first," she answered, as if that explained everything. "And besides, I had to." She glanced out to window to check who else was in the parking lot. "That boy is being abused."

Booth took a second to just stare at her. He thought he'd gotten used to this sort of stuff by now, but now he thought maybe he had no idea how ridiculous she could be. "What?"

He tried to think if he had noticed anything that could have justified Bones' accusation. Lance had been shy-sure-but it's not like he'd had bruises or even seemed withdrawn at the mention of his foster parents. He seemed remarkably well adjusted for a foster kid mixed up in a murder investigation.

Bones looked like she couldn't believe Booth didn't automatically believe her. "Didn't you see his face? It's asymmetrical."

"Are you calling him ugly?"

Bones blinked slowly and took a deep breath. "No. I felt his zygomatic bone. His facial structure has been altered by repeated strikes to his face over several years, causing many minor fractures. He's lucky his vision hasn't been affected." Her eyes begged for him to believe her. "In addition, he was obviously malnourished before and during puberty."

'Obviously,' Booth thought sarcastically,

He took a second to register what she was telling him. "Bones, okay, I believe you"-because honestly, she was almost never wrong-"but I can't just go around accusing people of child abuse because his face felt weird."

"It was his zygomatic-"

"I know, I know, Bones." Booth turns the car on. "Listen, I'll call the kid in to my office and get him a welfare representative so I can talk to him, okay?"

Bones sat back in her seat and reached for her seatbelt. "Thank you."


	3. Chapter 3

When Lance got home, it was nearly five o' clock, and nobody else was there. He breathed out a sigh of relief. He knew that the agent and that doctor coming to visit him probably meant they'd visited Frank and Melissa as well, so everybody was likely to be tense this evening.

He went to the fridge to see what kind of dinner he could forage, but nothing really looked good to him. He hated eating when he was stressed out; it felt like he was shoving sand down his throat. His social worker had always told him he just had a nervous stomach and lifted her eyebrows until he eventually forced a piece of bread down every time she saw him.

Thinking about Maria, Lance shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He checked that the worker's card with her phone number was still shoved into one of the pockets. He rarely called her of his own accord, but she had made it very clear she wanted to hear from him more often after Dalia went missing.

Dalia.

Lance slammed the fridge shut without pulling anything out.

He went over to the corner of the kitchen where all of the things Dalia had left out that day had been shoved. Drawings, some crayons, a hair clip. Melissa had moved it all; she hadn't been able to throw it away, but she didn't have it in her to just leave everything as is either. Lance rifled through the drawings as if they would tell him something, even though he'd seen them hundreds of times by now.

Eventually, he grabbed a water bottle from the pack on the floor and slunk to his room. Melissa never came in here, so all of Dalia's stuff has been left in its place. Lance wondered briefly if he should pack it all up now that they knew for sure that she was dead.

Dead.

He turned away quickly and focused on his own bed. He reached under it to pull out a CD then put the CD in the player. He turned the volume up higher than usual and let Metallica fill the room.

He had a lot of homework to do, and he really needed to shower, but instead Lance found himself lying on his bed. He stared up at the ceiling, where Dalia had insisted they put up star stickers. Very few had not fallen off yet, but there were still a few troopers up there.

Lance felt his eyes start to close slowly. He really was tired. He deserved a nap.

.~.

He woke up to the sound of the front door slamming and Frank shouting, "Turn that shit off!"

Lance launched himself off the bed. He scrambled to reach the CD player, slamming the off button harder than he really needed to. His hands were shaking, and he realized suddenly that he was overwhelmingly hungry. He hadn't eaten since last night; everything had been tasting and feeling like sand lately.

He heard Frank's footsteps coming down the hallway and hurried to open the door. He popped his head through the doorway. "I'm sorry," he gulped out. "I didn't hear you come home. I would've turned it off if—"

Frank rolled his eyes. He was wearing his work clothes still, and he still donned his work persona, stiff and irritable. "Just… shut up." He walked right past Lance's room and burst into his own room.

Lance slunk back into his room and checked that he hadn't broken his CD player. He should know by now not to leave his music on when he couldn't tell if Frank was going to be home soon. Frank had always hated the music Lance listened to, and they'd gotten into so many arguments about it that they had both conceded and accepted that the music would be played and people would be mad about it.

He briefly considered going out into the kitchen to try to force some food into himself, but then he heard Frank walk back to the front of the house and he decided to stay hidden away. There would inevitably be a confrontation, and Lance figured he would avoid it for as long as possible.

He had just settled himself back into bed when his bedroom door opened. Frank stood in the doorway, eyeing Lance. "It's five o clock."

Lance shoved aside his sheets. "I'm tired," he muttered. He kept his gaze low as he swung his legs to hang off the bed.

"Hm." Frank looked around the room. He didn't come in often, but when he did, he managed to be disapproving of everything he saw. His gaze hovered on Dalia's side of the room for a long time. "Did an arrogant cop and doctor come talk to you today?" he asked, obviously forcing a casual tone.

Lance nodded then, realizing Frank wasn't even looking at him, said, "Yes."

"What did they ask you?" Frank shifted his gaze to meet Lance's eyes.

The words forming in Lance's throat got stuck. His lips moved, but it took him a few tries to say, "They asked about when I came home and realized she was gone." He took in a breath to mention how the doctor had touched his face, but he decided at the last moment that he shouldn't bring it up. "They didn't talk to me for very long."

Frank nodded to himself, not saying anything for a few beats. "So you just talked about that day then?"

Lance nodded again.

They both turned their heads when the phone went off. Lance heard it be taken off its base and Melissa say a greeting. He hadn't realized she was home. Then her footsteps came down the hallway and she appeared behind her husband, still mumbling to the person on the other side of the phone. She hung up, pursed her lips, and looked at Lance. She spoke to Frank as she said, "That was Agent Booth. They're sending a care for Lance. They want to talk to him some more."

Lance looked down, but he could feel both his foster parents burning a hole into him with their eyes.

.~.

Booth had asked one of the desk agents to get him a welfare representative for a kid, and apparently they had given him a psychologist. He had just wanted some CPS worker, and he really didn't feel like dealing with psychology bullshit today, but he decided he could put up with it if it meant helping Lance out.

He was beginning to regret this decision when an older looking man knocked on his office door while simultaneously opening it. He grinned at Booth. "Hello, Agent Booth, I presume?"

Booth put out his hand for the psychologist to shake. "That's me."

"I'm Gordon. Gordon Wyatt." Gordon Wyatt sat down in one of the two chairs facing Booth's desk. "So let's not waste time. What's the situation today?"

Booth pulled Lance's picture out of the case file and slid it across his desk to Wyatt. His foster sister was just found dead so we went to interview the family. My partner suspects that he's being abused, so I wanted to talk to him alone"—he remembered the purpose of the psychologist being here—"alone-ish."

Wyatt looked at the photo for a moment then put it back on the desk. "You said your partner suspects… not you?"

Booth let a heavy breath out. He was being shrinked already and he wasn't even the one Wyatt was here for. "Well I trust her—but I didn't see the signs she did. It was all physical. Bones and nourishment and… Nothing I would've been able to pick up on."

It occurred to Booth suddenly that it was ironic that he hadn't been able to pick up on the signs. It was likely that he had the very same markers that Lance did. He had sustained a pretty decent amount of blows to the face as a kid. He touched his cheekbone and wondered if Bones had noticed and just had the decency not to mention it; that seemed unlike her.

"Did she tell you what these specific signs were?" Wyatt asked, seeming not to notice that Booth was preoccupied. He picked the picture of Lance back up.

Booth shrugged. "Something about a bone in his face getting messed up from being hit a lot. And then she said he was obviously malnourished often during puberty." He watched Wyatt inspect the photo once more.

Wyatt was opening his mouth to respond when there was a knock on the office door. Booth looked up to see a female agent standing next to Lance and smiling. She had her hand on the boy's back, and Lance seemed to be trying to disappear into his sweater.

Booth waved for them to come in. The woman stepped in, and Lance followed. "Good evening, Agent Booth, Dr. Wyatt." She removed her hand from Lance's back. "Goodbye for now, Lance. I'll be just outside at my desk, and I'll take you home when you're done, okay?"

Booth watched as the boy made brief eye contact with her and nodded before looking back to the floor. When she had exited, Lance shuffled toward Booth's desk but didn't sit down in the vacant chair. "Hi, Agent Booth," he mumbled. He looked at Wyatt. "Hi."

Wyatt grinned at him and stuck out his hand to shake. "Hello, Lance. I'm Dr. Gordon Wyatt. Please, sit."

Lance shook the doctor's hand as he sat. He looked back to Booth. "Where's Dr. Brennan?" he asked.

'Wow,' Booth thought, 'someone who likes her without having to let her grow on them.'

"She's working," he responded. He thought about mentioning that the stated work was Dalia's case but thought better of it.

Lance nodded. "What do you need from me?" he asked, obviously not willing to wait any longer for an explanation. His fingers had found their way to his sweater's zipper, and he was pulling it up and down an inch or so.

Booth leaned across his desk. He realized that he had not planned at all what he was going to say to Lance. He didn't even know what he would've wanted to hear when is he was in Lance's place. "When my partner and I… left after talking to you. She shared some concerns with me about your wellbeing."

Booth could tell that Lance's breath had caught. He paused for a moment, deciding what to say next. Eventually, he continued, "She told me that when she felt your face"—Lance tensed more—"she felt damage that we see a lot in kids who are being hurt at home."

He realized too late that he was talking as if Lance was a five year old. The kid was seventeen, but it was too late for Booth to rephrase it.

He watched Lance for his reaction. Lance didn't seem to know what he wanted to say. His mouth was half open, but he hadn't moved to form any words yet. Eventually, he snapped out, "I'm fine."

That, more than anything Bones had told him, convinced Booth that there was something wrong. He had a sudden memory of his football coach calling him into his office during his freshman year to ask how Booth had hurt his shoulder because it definitely hadn't been at practice. He remembered being more angry than anything that this man he'd known only a few weeks could act like he had a right to Booth's secrets.

He wished he could communicate to Lance that he understood what he was feeling, but he knew that nothing he said would make him feel any less resentful to the world.

Wyatt leaned forward in his chair, toward Lance. "Lance, would you like to hear why Dr. Brennan was concerned about you?" Lance gave no answer, which Wyatt seemed to take as a yes. "There's a bone in your face that a lot of people call your cheekbone, but it actually makes up more than just your cheek. When Dr. Brennan felt it, she could tell that it had been damaged by many blows to your face over a long period of time." He paused, checking to see if Lance was going to respond in any way. "She also believed that you were malnourished as a child. She did not mention specifically why, but I believe there are indications that you should have been significantly taller or broader than you are, but your growth was stunted."

When he was done, Wyatt leaned back into his chair.

When Lance finally spoke, Booth could not have guessed what he was going to say in a million years. Lance bit out, "I know what the zygomatic bone is. I'm not seven years old."

Booth had to stop himself from chuckling. He'd almost forgotten how smart Lance was.

Lance then turned on him. "Why should I tell you anything? You don't know anything about me. You don't get to come sauntering into my life and upend everything that I've had figured out for ten years because you've got some superman complex and a shiny badge."

Wow. That was anger Booth hadn't seen from a kid in a long time. The expression that had worked its way onto Lance's face reminded him of Jared.

He took a deep breath. "You're right, Lance." He knew just as well as anybody that trying to battle with a hurt teenager's anger wouldn't help anything. "I don't know anything about you. I only know what's in your case file: that your mother abandoned you at birth"—as he spoke, Booth pulled over the file and opened it—"and that your father followed suit a few days later by leaving you in a hospital waiting room. I know that you were in four foster homes before being put with Melissa and Frank, and you've been living with them since you were five." He paused to look at Lance's reaction. The boy had set his jaw and was watching Booth with emotionless eyes. "I know you've been in the emergency room eight times in ten years, all with accidental injuries listed as the cause. And I know that my partner, the top forensic anthropologist in the world, thinks you're being hurt."

Booth closed the file and shoved it away from him. "So Lance, what else can you tell me about yourself?"

Lance bit his lip. He slouched in his seat. "I want to go home."


	4. Chapter 4

"I want to go home."

Booth briefly considered saying no, but he's not allowed to keep anyone against their will unless they're being officially questioned. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring at Lance for a few seconds. He glanced over at Wyatt, who was staring at him, waiting for his action.

Booth slowly stood. "Alright. I'll drive you home. Come on."

Lance looked unsure, like he wasn't really expecting Booth to comply. He stood up slowly and watched Booth uncomfortably while the elder grabbed his phone and wallet from his desk drawer. Booth walked toward the door, checking that Lance was following him, and said, "Thank you for your time, Dr. Wyatt" as he left his office.

The agent that had driven Lance there stood when she noticed them, but Booth waved her down and continued out of the building with the teenager trailing behind him. He led Lance to the parking garage.

When they got into the car, Booth took his own sweet time driving away. "So are you a junior or a senior, Lance?"

Lance was sitting as far to the right in the passenger seat as he possibly could. He had been looking out the window when Booth had spoken. He glanced over and made brief eye contact before going back to staring away. "Senior."

"You got college plans?" Booth pulled the car out of the parking garage and started down the back route toward Lance's house.

"I'm trying to get into University of Toronto," Lance replied. He offered no other information.

"That's far," Booth remarked. He coasted along five miles under the speed limit, allowing other cars to pass him. Lance's home wasn't far enough for him to get a full conversation if he sped up at all.

Lance just shrugged.

Booth resisted the urge to sigh. He tried to be understanding of the boy's stubbornness. "What do you want to study?"

"Psychology."

Booth recalled that the teacher who seemed so concerned about Lance at the school was the AP psychology teacher.

"Is Toronto the best school for that or are you just getting as far away as possible?" He tried to sound casual.

Lance turned to look at him slowly. Booth glance away from the road just long enough to see the daggers the boy's eyes has transformed into. "We both know where this is going," Lance bit out. "I don't have to talk to you. I don't need your help. Speed up the car and take me home."

Booth gritted his teeth. Clearly being nice wasn't getting him anywhere. This kid was already making him dread the day Parker became a teenage boy.

Making a rash decision he would probably regret later, Booth pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it in park. Lance visually tensed and turned his body so he had a better view of Booth. His eyes moved around quickly as he took stock of the situation.

"Listen, kid," Booth hissed. "I don't care if you don't need my help. I'm trying to solve a murder investigation."

Lance drew back slightly, pressing his back against the car door. He stared resolutely at Booth's chin.

"So here's the deal: I find a little girl dead and then I find out her foster brother has been getting the shit kicked out of him since before puberty. You surprised I think the person who did the latter"-Booth pointed at Lance-"is capable of the first?"

Lance gazed at him for a long time with an expression that Booth couldn't read. Eventually he turned away to stare resolutely at the road ahead of them. "Take me home," he commanded and refused to look at Booth again.

Knowing he had sown the seed he needed, Booth put the car in drive and pulled back onto the road.

.~.

When Lance got home, Melissa and Frank were sitting at the dining room table. It was nearing 9:30, so he'd hoped they would be in bed, but luck hadn't been on his side for a while. Melissa rose when he walked in. "What did they want?"

Lance looked over her shoulder at Frank, who was still sitting at the table. Agent Booth's words lingered in his mind as he watched his foster father try not to look too concerned. Lance opened and closed his mouth a few times then moved his gaze back to make eye contact with Melissa.

"I wasn't detailed enough when I told them about the day Dalia disappeared," he lied. "They wanted to know more."

"You took a long time."

"The fed's drive like grandmas."

Melissa stared at him for a long time. She turned away, grabbed her purse from the counter, and took off down the hallway.

Frank stood up to follow his wife. As he walked past Lance, Lance drew back and tensed in a way he hadn't in a while. When his foster father had left the room, he realized he was holding his breath.

Lance waited a few moments before walking down the hallway to the bathroom. He locked the door behind him and slowly pulled his shirt off. He then did something he had avoided for as long as he could remember. He turned and looked over his shoulder to see his back in the mirror. The thick scars near his shoulders stood out just as much as they always had. He cringed as he contorted his arm to reach back and run his fingers over one of them.

He allowed himself to remember, with difficulty, the ordeal that had led to the scars. Broken dishes. Home too late. Intimidating, booming yells. A broken electric cord that remained on the workbench in the garage to this day.

Lance broke his gaze from the mirror and pulled his shirt back on, shivering. He let his back hit the wall. Sliding down to sit on the bathroom floor, Lance tried to think of what he must have looked like back then. How old had he been the last time? Twelve? Thirteen? Still small enough to pass as younger though.

He had cried every time. He had tried not to, especially as he neared his teenage years, but it had hurt.

Lance closed his eyes and let his head rest on the wall behind him. He imagined himself: small, thin, sobbing. Trying to curl into himself as if somehow that we would make it hurt less.

He tried to think of how someone could be capable of continuing to let that frayed electrical cord dig into a child's skin. Just the idea of it made him feel sick.

Was somebody who was capable of that capable of murder?

Yes, Lance decided. Frank was absolutely capable of murder. He had murdered Dalia.

Lance pulled out his wallet and found the business card Agent Booth had given him when they first met. He unlocked his phone and started to dial.


	5. Chapter 5

Michael Smith was still awake at 10:30 when his phone started ringing. He paused his video game only because he saw his best friend's name pop up on the screen. "Wassup?" he answered, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear so he could go back to playing while he talked.

"Are you busy right now?" Lance asked. "I need a favor."

Michael set his controller down and gripped his phone. Lance never asked for favors. Sometimes he asked for a ride home or to copy notes, but anything that he thought might actually inconvenience someone was off the table.

"No, I'm just saving the entirety of the human race. Why?" he responded.

Lance knew that translated to 'I'm sitting on my couch and eating Cheetos while I yell at my video game'. "Can you drive me somewhere? It's kind of far. I'll pay you back for gas. But it's kind of important. I understand if you don't-"

Michael rolled his eyes. "I'm leaving my house to get you as we speak." He shut off his TV and grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter. His parents might notice he was gone, but they probably wouldn't say anything if he came back by the next morning. "Where are we going anyway?"

He could hear Lance take in a breath like he was going to speak but no words followed. For a moment, he wondered if he was going to end up in deep shit tonight.

Lance was nothing if not well-behaved, but in the months since his foster sister had gone missing, he'd gone off the rails-as much as a 4.3 student with a fear of authority could. Most of his rebellion consisted of him allowing himself to be talked into things by Michael that he normally would have rolled his eyes at the suggestion of. Lance had finally attended his first high school party last month (as a senior, pathetic) and gotten completely plastered but had still managed to write a five thousand word essay by noon the next day and fill out paperwork for a scholarship before his hangover had subsided.

Somehow, Michael wouldn't be surprised if Lance was looking to get into trouble tonight.

"The FBI headquarters."

Oh.

Michael had been halfway out the door. He froze.

"What?" he choked out. Maybe Lance was already in trouble.

"It's about Dalia," Lance said quietly.

Double oh. "Ok."

.~.

Lance probably should have called Agent Booth to come get him, but the idea of more time alone in the car with that man made him squirm. He still hadn't decided how he felt about Agent Booth. He hoped the agent's partner would be there.

When he hung up from his call with Michael, Lance typed Booth's number from his card into his phone and wrote a text that said 'coming to FBI headquarters. Need to talk to you.'

He knew that the likelihood of Booth still being at work at this time of night was low; but the guy was so intense about getting Lance to talk that Lance figured he would get himself to headquarters.

Agent Booth responded almost immediately. 'Is this Lance? I'll come get you right now.'

Lance had to give him credit for being willing to come get him at this hour. 'Already on my way.'

.~.

Agent Booth was sitting on the platform in the Smithsonian when Lance texted him. He watched silently as Bones pored over Dalia's remains, frustrated that she was finding almost nothing that could point toward a killer.

"We know they had to have had smaller hands than the average male," she told him, voice strained with the anger of not being able to say much more.

Booth reached into his pocket to grab his buzzing phone. "Frank's pretty short, could have small hands. Did you notice?"

Bones shook her head.

As Booth read the text from Lance, adrenaline immediately lifted his mood. "Lance wants to talk to me," he told Bones, who looked up from the remains with wide eyes. He typed out a response saying he would come get Lance and grabbed his jacket from the chair. "You wanna come?"

Bones was already stripping off her gloves before the question made it out of his mouth. Never before had Booth seen Bones so attached to someone in an investigation. She'd only met Lance once and she was willing to abandon her work to go talk to him.

Booth thought about Bones' offhand remark about being in the foster system. He knew the likelihood that she had experienced mistreatment in the system. The part of him that was a father and a friend, the same part of him that had also been a hurt kid, wanted to ask her why she cared so much about Lance-but he was also an FBI agent, a soldier, and (most importantly) Bones' professional partner, so he kept his mouth shut.

His phone buzzed, and he read the reply from Lance. "He's already on his way," Booth said quietly.

Bones, who was hanging up her lab coat, didn't miss a beat. "Well we should be at your office when he gets there."

.~.

"Do you think he's going to admit to the abuse?" Bones asked after they'd been waiting in Booth's office in silence for several minutes. She had been pacing, but finally settled into one of the chairs as she asked the question.

Booth shrugged. He tapped the head of his bobblehead, not looking up at Bones. "I'm still not sure the kid is being-"

"I know what I saw, Booth," Bones interrupted. She sounded hurt. Booth looked up to see that she was staring him down. "There's only one reason for a teenager to have those kinds of injuries, even if he routinely got into fights." She huffed, standing again to pace the office.

"He seems-"

"Bones don't lie, Booth!"

Booth could tell that he was going to have Bones ignoring and undercutting him for the next few days if he didn't stop soon. He sighed. "I'm sorry."

Bones pursed her lips.

Booth was saved from having to think of a better apology by the shadows of two teenage boys appearing on the other side of the glass. The door opened, and Lance poked his head in. His eyes hovered on Booth for only a fraction of a second before they moved to Bones. Lance's face relaxed upon seeing her. Interesting.

The boy stepped in slowly and he was followed by a boy Booth thought he recognized but couldn't put a name to.

"Hi, Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan," Lance mumbled. He stopped a couple feet into the room, and his friend hovered a few inches behind him, eyeing Booth.

Booth nodded as a greeting. "Sit down," he said, trying to sound casual. The two teenagers took the chairs as Bones moved to stand by Booth, who leaned against the front of his desk.

The other boy was looking around Booth's office uncertainly, as if trying to piece together what this room was for. He already didn't seem to be the brightest bulb there was.

"This is Michael. He's my friend," Lance explained. He hesitated. "He drove me here," he added, as if that was important to Booth and Bones' impression of him.

"You were sitting in the office when we came to the school to interview Lance," Bones said, and Booth suddenly remembered seeing the boy sitting on a bench in a hallway leading from the main office to the principal's office.

Michael snickered and nodded. "I was-uh. Never mind."

Booth resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Can you wait outside Michael? We need to talk to Lance privately."

Lance opened his mouth like he wanted to object, but he closed it quickly, looking like he was thinking. Michael turned to Lance, watching him for a few moments. Then he nodded, stood, and walked outside. Booth watched his form sit down at a random agent's desk.

Booth pushed away from his desk and walked over to sit across from Lance. "What do you need to talk to me about?"

Lance moved his eyes to glance at Bones, who was walking over to stand behind Booth, then glanced at Booth before looking down at the ground. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together. He licked his lips. "You were right," he said quietly.

Bones let out a soft, self-satisfied "hm" sound.

"Right about what?" Booth asked. He knew he was making it harder for Lance, but he couldn't risk being accused of fishing if this became important in Dalia's case.

Lance looked up at the ceiling. "Frank-like-hits me, I guess."

.~.

Lance looked at the agent in front of him just in time to watch as Booth's face went from imploring to lost to forced emotionlessness. He cursed himself for how lame that confession had sounded. Like-hits me-I guess. That could have come out better.

But he honestly couldn't think of a better way to put it. For some reason, the seriousness of the situation made it hard for him to take it seriously. The three word sentence, "Frank hits me," sounded like it barely even meant anything, like it couldn't possible be a summary of the past 13 years of his life. Yet it had been the confession he'd managed to construct in his head on the drive here.

The other option had been "I'm being abused," but that felt like too much. Just saying the word abused felt too serious. It conjured up images of Lifetime movies and sad news stories, of kids who were too skinny and flinched. And that just wasn't his life. It wasn't.

He caught himself glancing down at his body to make sure he wasn't suddenly skinnier than he thought.

"Can you remember the first time he hurt you?" Booth asked him, breaking his self criticism.

Lance took a deep breath. He had hoped it would be easier than that. He could tell by Booth's expression that they were in for a long discussion, and they were going to expect answers other than yes and no.

Still, he could try. "Yeah."

"How old were you?" Booth asked. He had pulled a notebook from his jacket but not a pen. The notebook sat on his lap.

"Five. It was about a month after I got placed with Frank and Melissa." Lance wanted to stop and not go into too much detail, but part of him had been aching to say something for too long. "There was another kid there who protected me until then but he got taken away."

"Because of the abuse?"

And there was that word. Ouch.

Lance shook his head, trying to remember as much as he could. "I don't think so. I think his real mom got custody back."

Booth nodded, looking satisfied by that answer for some reason. He glanced up at Bones, who hadn't spoken since this had started.

"And when did he hurt you most recently?" Booth asked.

Lance looked away, trying to place his memories of the last couple months in order. "A month ago? He just kinda smacked me though. It wasn't really..." He trailed off, not sure what he meant to say. He avoided looking at either of the adults' faces.

"How often does Frank get violent with you?"

"When I was younger, a lot. I dunno. A couple times a week. Now, barely ever. Once or twice a month."

There had been an obvious change when Lance hit his growth spurt freshman year. He had started out high school looking like a sixth grader, but sometime between the beginning of fall and spring semester, he had put on thirty pounds and three inches. That had put him over Frank's height.

That was when it had changed from being hurt constantly to barely ever.

"How-" Booth stumbled over his next question. He frowned. "Were you ever deprived of food as punishment?"

Lance nodded. He allowed himself to think briefly of the times he would wander close to the fridge and feel Melissa's glare on him before he saw it. He was lucky they didn't know he got free lunch at school, so during the school year, it was never really that bad. During the summer though...

He noticed that Booth had taken out a pen and had written a few things down. He didn't even attempt to try to read it.

"One more question," Booth murmured, clicking his pen closed.

That was it? Lance had been expecting... something more. Emotions? He'd thought he'd be expected to cry and that Dr. Brennan would hold him, and Agent Booth would have to hold in his anger at Frank. But that hadn't happened. (Although Booth's clenched jaw told him he might have gotten that last part right.) It had been methodical. He was being asked all the standard questions, and then they'd be done. And then what?

"Did Frank ever use an object to hit you?"

All the time. Anything he could get his hands on. But of course the only thing that popped into Lance's head was that goddamn electrical wire sitting in their garage. He wondered if they would have to search his house and if they would find it. It was blood-stained; it had been for as long as he could remember.

He nodded again. "Basically anything within reach," he said, gritting his teeth. He couldn't get himself to mention the wire. Just thinking about it hurt.

Booth didn't say anything for a long moment. Then he tucked his notepad and pen back into his jacket and stood. Lance followed suit.

"I'll send someone to your foster parents' house to question them as soon as possible," Booth said with obvious effort to keep his voice even. His eyes flickered to look at Michael, who had begun to snoop around in the drawers of empty desks. The few agents still left in their cubicles were starting to notice.

Booth took a deep breath. "Come on, we'll find you an emergency foster placement for the night."

Lance did not like the sound of that, and he suddenly remembered why he had been so adamant about refusing to tell anyone. He knew what kids went through in the system. Frank and Melissa were terrible, but they were far from the worst he could have gotten, and he knew that. There were plenty of amazing parents in the system, but he was never willing to take his chances.

His legs shook as he stood up. He told himself to be brave. He couldn't have a breakdown here. He would be fine as long as he had Booth to call. He would call Booth if he had problems. Everything would be fine. Fine.

"He'll stay with me," Dr. Brennan said suddenly, and Lance was startled by the sound of her voice.

Booth sighed. "Bones, he has to go to a registered foster parent. You know that."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I am a registered foster parent," she replied. She started walking toward the door. "Do you need to get anything before we go to my apartment, Lance?"

Lance, still processing that he wouldn't have to go spend the night with any of the hundreds of random strangers in the system, shook his head. He couldn't think straight right now, but he could ask Michael if he suddenly thought of anything.

She nodded, satisfied, and walked out the door, obviously expecting Lance to follow her; so he did.


	6. Chapter 6

Lance followed at Dr. Brennan's quick pace. He sensed more than saw Agent Booth scramble to grab his things and turn off his office light to follow them.

Michael stood from the desk he'd been hovering at and started to follow Lance, but Agent Booth put a large hand on his shoulder and said something to him quietly. Michael nodded, and he waved half heartedly to Lance before going over to the elevator they had come in from.

Dr. Brennan lead Lance to a door he hadn't noticed before tucked in a corner. It opened to immediately put them in the parking garage. Lance spent a moment admiring the planning of the building before he was rushing after Dr. Brennan again.

Agent Booth walked behind them, but he seemed like he was walking at his leisure, as if Dr. Brennan's pace was something he was completely used to and had no problem keeping up with. He stared down at his phone as they walked. Lance felt too anxious to take a long look back to see if he was actually doing anything on it.

They arrived at Agent Booth's car and Dr. Brennan yanked open the passenger side door and got in. Lance hesitated for a moment before getting in to sit behind her.

It hit him suddenly, as Agent Booth was lifting himself into the driver's seat and starting the car, that he had started out today thinking it was a normal day. He had just wanted to drag himself through the day, go to chess club, and then go home to hide in his room until tomorrow. (Actually, he had no idea what time it was. It could be the next day by now and he wouldn't even know. He was starting to feel tired.) But here he was, shaking in the back seat of an FBI issued SUV, going to spend the night with a woman who seemed cold, and being taken there by a man who had no problem intimidating him to get what he wanted.

Lance hadn't decided how he felt about Dr. Brennan or Agent Booth yet. Agent Booth had been kind during the questioning process, but earlier in the day he had acted like he was willing to do anything to get the answers he wanted. He didn't give the impression that he actually cared about Lance, but Lance was used to that, but it made this entire ordeal ten times worse. And Dr. Brennan, who had barely spoken, was willing to take Lance into her home for the night, but she seemed entirely unattached.

Lance had imagined people finding out about the Johnsons many times, especially when he was still a little kid. He had cooked up a lot of scenarios. When he'd been especially young, he'd fantasized about his real parents coming back with perfectly legitimate reasons for leaving and punishing the Johnsons for how they had treated Lance. He'd also gone through a phase where no matter what he did, he always imagined somebody finding out and realizing that he was weird or wrong somehow, and hating him forever. Lately, he'd just made a lot of unrealistic plans for leaving with no warning and taking on the world by himself.

But he had never imagined anything as nerve wracking, awkward, and unpredictable as this.

Agent Booth cleared his throat as he pulled the car out of the parking garage. "There are agents on the way to your house right now," he told Lance. "If you want to go get some of your stuff, I can also go in with you."

Lance thought about it for a second. Part of him wanted to just go to Dr. Brennan's apartment and fall asleep as soon as possible (and, ideally, sleep for a couple days), but he had school tomorrow, and right now all he had was his phone and the clothes he wore.

He nodded jerkily. "Yeah. Um. that would be good."

Agent Booth turned on the stereo, and Lance could read the clock. 12:47 AM. He needed to wake up in 6 hours to get ready for school, assuming he was going to be able to find a way to get to school. Once he knew where Dr. Brennan lived, he could ask Michael to get him if it wasn't too far. If not, maybe he could get a bus. But then he would have to wake up earlier. He had the bus schedule memorized for the routes in his neighborhood, but he had no idea where Dr. Brennan lived or if it was going to be anywhere close to school.

He realized he'd been zoned out and letting himself overthink when they pulled into his driveway. It didn't feel like they'd been driving long enough to be there already.

Lance slowly put his hand on the door handle. He noticed another car like Agent Booth's parked in front of the house.

Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan both got out of the car, so Lance scrambled to follow suit. They walked ahead of him into the house.

Lance stepped slowly through the doorway. His foster parents were sitting on the couch while two agents he'd never seen before stood before them, both holding notebooks. Frank didn't even turn when Lance walked in, but Melissa made eye contact with him. Her face remained, for the most part, neutral, but the look in her eyes was one that Lance was familiar with, and he hurried down the hallway to get to his room.

He started to pull a couple sets of clothes from his closet and threw them on his bed. What else would he need? He couldn't think straight enough to even know what he used in his daily life. School stuff. He needed his school stuff. He started to look for his backpack, tripping over his own feet as he walked around the room.

Dr. Brennan walked through his doorway, followed by Agent Booth. "Do you have anything to put your stuff in?"

Lance realized suddenly that he didn't. He had never really traveled, so he hadn't needed anything. "I have my backpack," he answered, not looking at her, "somewhere…"

She turned to Agent Booth. "Go get one of the duffel bags I put evidence bags in," she commanded him. He disappeared quickly, ready to do as she asked.

Lance finally spotted his backpack. It was sitting on Dalia's bed. He realized suddenly that someone had been going through his stuff. He never put anything on the other side of the room, accustomed to sharing with kids who desperately needed their own space.

He dug through his backpack. Nothing was missing, and his wallet had been untouched. He wondered briefly what Frank or Melissa, whichever one had invaded his privacy, had been looking for, but he had long stopped trying to understand what they wanted from him.

"Everything okay?" Dr. Brennan asked from where she stood in the doorway.

"Yeah," Lance choked out. He started grabbing his textbooks from his desk and stuffing them into his backpack. "I think somebody was going through my stuff." He was mumbling. He tried to stop. "But nothing's gone, so it's fine."

She didn't respond. Instead, she walked over to where he had thrown his clothes onto his bed. She began folding them and sorting them into piles. When Agent Booth returned with a duffel bag bearing the FBI crest, she packed them for him.

When Lance had finished gathering his school things, he went to gathering his essentials. He slipped out of the room quietly to get his toothbrush and razor from the bathroom.

When he returned, Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan were talking quietly. "That was good, Bones," Agent Booth said. "It was nice of you. To have me get him a duffel bag."

Dr. Brennan shrugged. "I've been there. I figured he wouldn't have anything." She continued to search for good ways to make his stuff fit into the small duffel bag. She looked like she could barely focus enough to do that.

Lance realized suddenly how tired they both seemed, and it occurred to him that they had both had just as long a day as him. He felt a pang of guilt for dragging this out so late into the night. They both had to be at work in the morning just as he had to be at school. They had probably both still been at work when he called too. Lance decided to try to be less sensitive to everything they did; they were all having a strange night.

He handed his bathroom essentials to Dr. Brennan for her to put in the bag. He slung his backpack over his shoulder.

Questions and concerns about what was going to happen from here, but he just unclenched his jaw and sighed. "I'm ready."

.~.

Dr. Brennan's apartment was roomier than he had been expecting. She led him immediately to a guess room with a desk and a large bed. "Just make yourself comfortable," she said, stumbling over her words. Lance got the impression she didn't have foster kids stay with her very often. "Are you hungry?"

Oh god, yes, he was so hungry. It hadn't been overwhelming while he hadn't thought about it, but now that she asked, he was so hungry he was weak. "Uh, yeah, kind of." Lance set his backpack and the duffel bag down on the bed then turned back to face her.

"I'll see what Booth and I can cook up. I don't keep much food in the house, honestly." She started to walk away then stopped suddenly. "You allergic to anything?" Lance shook his head so she hurried off.

Lance pulled his psychology textbook out of his backpack. He was lucky that he hadn't had much homework tonight, but he did have a lot of assigned reading that he hadn't gotten around to yet for psychology. For any other class, he would have just blown it off and skimmed it right before the test, but he always found himself going the extra mile for Mr. Finley's class. He'd failed exactly one quiz in his class, and the disappointed look his teacher had given him had set a pit in Lance's stomach for several days.

He'd first encountered Mr. Finley as a freshman. Michael had student government during lunch on Fridays and Lance was left on his own, so he had decided to see if he could find a place for himself in the chess club. Mr. Finley had been thrilled to have someone who was actually good at chess and had spent a large amount of time working with Lance. Lance developed an embarrassing need to impress him. It was pathetic, really—but Lance couldn't help it. Mr. Finley was nice, and Lance really needed someone to be nice to him.

Lance had gotten through a few pages before he heard Agent Booth call his name. "Lance! Come get your fine cuisine!" the man boomed. Lance could hear a ceramic plate being set on a counter. He closed his book, but kept it with him, and walked cautiously into the kitchen. Both of the adults had taken off their work jackets, and Agent Booth had shed his tie. They looked ready to collapse into the next bed they saw. Just as Lance was thinking this, Agent Booth turned to his partner. "Why don't you go to bed, Bones? I think I'll stay on the couch tonight, so I can lock everything up."

She looked at him gratefully before turning to Lance. "I have extra toiletries in the bathroom connected to the guest room. If you need anything, Booth can probably find it for you." She gave him an exhausted smile before walked out of the room.

Agent Booth motioned to the plate on the breakfast bar. "Eat."

Lance pulled out a stool and sat down. A grilled cheese sandwich was set before him. He didn't think he'd ever seen anything so appetizing in his life. The sandwich was consumed embarrassingly fast, and neither of them spoke while Lance was eating.

As Lance was wiping crumbs of the sandwich off his face, he dared to look up at Agent Booth. The man was staring at his phone but noticed Lance looking at him. "You should get some sleep," he said. He locked his phone and set it down. "We need to get to the office around eight tomorrow, and you should probably come with us."

Lance looked back down quickly. "Um. Can I go to school? I have a test."

Agent Booth was silent for a moment, and then Lance thought he heard him chuckle softly. "I don't think that's a good idea, Lance," he said slowly. "It's probably better that you be with us, so I can keep an eye on you."

Lance felt his heart rate go up. What did they think he was going to do? Was he a suspect? Had they been lying to him? "I—I have a test," was all he could think to say. He wasn't sure if he'd even said it loud enough for Agent Booth to hear.

"If you're teacher doesn't let you make it up, I'll show up with my gun, okay?" Agent Booth responded. He grabbed Lance's plate and brought it over to the sink.

"I—" Lance choked on his voice.

Booth turned back to him. "Listen. Kid." He sighed and looked up to the ceiling for a second. "We can't arrest your foster parents yet. So. I just want to keep you with me, okay? Otherwise I'd worry about you all day."

Oh.

Booth took another large breath. "I wanted to wait to talk to you about this but… if there's anything that you can think of that could be…" He couldn't seem to meet Lance's eyes. "… proof of what you told me about how you were treated, you should tell me, okay?"

Lance immediately thought of the scars on his back and the bloody extension cord that sat conspicuously in the garage—unless it had been hidden. He swallowed and shook his head. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

Agent Booth nodded. "Go to bed. You look dead on your feet. 8 o' clock tomorrow, alright?"

Lance nodded and stood. "Goodnight."

Agent Booth was obviously trying not to look disappointed that Lance hadn't provided him with case making evidence. He nodded again. "Night."

Lance started to walk away, but he stopped when he reached the mouth of the hallway that would lead to the guest bedroom. "Agent Booth?"

"Yeah?" came the tired reply.

"Thank you."


	7. Chapter 7

Lance couldn't sleep. He laid on the starchy guest bed and stared up at the ceiling, wishing there was some form of light in the room. He didn't need a nightlight specifically, but Lance had had problems with the dark for as long as he could remember. At home, he had the a street light flow in through his window from across the street. Here, blackout curtains made it impossible for the constant light of Washington DC to break in.

Lance rolled out of bed and slowly crept over to the window. The floorboards creaked under his feet. He missed carpeted floors.

He pushed aside one of the curtains covering the window. The lights of the city burst through the window, filling the room more than he'd expected. The busier parts of the city were a lot brighter than the rundown neighborhood he'd grown up in. Lance closed the curtain almost all the way, leaving just enough of a gap to give some light so he would be able to relax and sleep.

He turned back to get back into bed and noticed a figure in the doorway. He didn't even have time to think before he was stepping back and curling his hands into fists. His back hit the window sill, and his heart rate went up.

"You doing okay?" Agent Booth asked, stepping farther into the room. He was rubbing his eyes. "I heard you moving around."

Lance tried to respond. He really did. His brain told his mouth to say, "Yeah, I'm fine," but his mouth was too busy sucking in useless breaths to form any words. The breaths he took felt too thin, and his chest felt too empty as his lungs failed to get the oxygen he needed.

He put one shaking hand behind him on the window sill to catch his balance.

Agent Booth continued to move into the room. "Hey. What's wrong?"

Lance shook his head. "Nothing," he managed to whisper. "I just wanted some light." He used his free hand to motion to the window.

Agent Booth looked unsure but he nodded and stepped back toward the door. "Alright," he said slowly. "Just let me know if you need anything." He walked away, taking one last look at Lance over his shoulder before he disappeared down the hallway.

Lance stood in place for a long time, waiting for his heart to slow down. He was able to get a few genuine breaths in, and he soon moved back to bed. His chest continued to have an overwhelming feeling of _wrong_.

He had experienced panic attacks for a long time, since before he moved in with the Johnsons. He hadn't known what they were until fourth grade, when he had one during class and the school nurse had talked him through it. Over the years, he'd gotten better at handling them, but they could still be set off by the smallest things, like Agent Booth showing up unexpectedly.

Lance pulled the blankets tight around him, trying to create a cocoon for himself. He put his arms over his face and attempted to sleep.

.~.

Booth watched the kid in his rearview mirror while stopped at a red light on the way to the FBI building. Lance was hunched over a thick textbook, trying to read in the dim light of the winter morning. His heavy backpack sat next to him. It was old, ratty; and Booth suspected Lance had been trying to make it last for a while.

In the morning, Lance had asked if he should bring all his stuff with him. Booth had realized Lance had no idea what his situation was right now. He'd explained to the boy that he would be staying with Bones at least until they'd finished this case.

It was hard to read Lance. Booth could never tell how he was reacting to anything they said or did. His facial expressions were so nuanced and contained that Booth was scared that he was misreading all of them. He'd seen anger and fear in the boy so far, but most of the time he had no idea what he was seeing.

"What class are you studying for?" Booth asked. Bones looked over at him, annoyed that Booth couldn't handle silence in the car. She didn't understand his parental instinct to make the kid feel like Booth was interested in him.

Lance looked up from his book warily, and Booth was reminded of the terror he'd seen on his face in the dim light of the guest room last night. He hadn't meant to scare Lance, but his sudden appearance gave the boy a jolt nonetheless. Booth suspected Lance was a lot more scared of him than he let on.

"Psychology," Lance answered him. "I have a test today."

Booth chuckled. "Yeah, you mentioned that last night." He might have been imagining it, but he swore he saw Lance blush. "You need me to threaten your teacher to let you make it up?" he joked.

Lance shook his head, and it almost seemed like he laughed. "No, I think it'll be okay."

When they got to the lab, Booth led Lance to Bones' office and told him he could hang out in there. He was a little unsure about leaving him alone, but Booth knew it was a better option than bringing him to check on his foster sister's remains.

Booth followed Bones to the platform to listen while she got updated on forensics of the case. Zack was already deep into work, and he looked up nervously while they walked up. "I… I would like to know what kinds of shoes the foster father wears. I'm not one hundred percent convinced that it could have been him."

Booth crossed his arms. "And why—"

Bones interrupted him, pulling on plastic gloves. "Of course. I should have realized," she mumbled. "We know that they had smaller than average feet, but the distribution of the pressure could also have been affected by the kind of shoes. What are you thinking, Zack?"

The intern looked nervously at Booth while he spoke. "We know that the small feet are consistent with Frank Johnson's short stature, but I would feel more comfortable if we also knew what shoes he could have been wearing."

"I agree," Bones said, and Zack seemed to relax a little. "Mr. Addy, will you go check on Lance Sweets? He's in my office. And send Dr. Hodgins to tell me what he's found about what could have been on the shoes."

Zack, willing to take any chance to get out of Booth's judging gaze, nodded and hurried off the platform to go to Hodgins' station.

Booth turned to Bones. "Why does he turn into a kicked puppy when I'm around?" he asked. He knew he should be quiet when Bones was getting to work, but he preferred to keep conversation going while in the lab. The place made him uncomfortable enough; he didn't need silence adding to that.

"You scare him," Bones responded matter-of-factly. "You're large, you don't respect his work, and you remind him of schoolyard bullies."

Booth frowned. He had kind of always known that, but he hated to admit it. That, and how scared Lance had acted of him last night, was making him feel like complete shit today. He readjusted to try to stand in a less imposing position.

He watched as Bones leaned over the remains and began to work. He had spent a lot of time watching this very process, but he was always impressed by how much information she would inevitably produce after a long time of doing what seemed like nothing more than staring.

Booth pulled his phone out and left the platform to call one of the agents who had gone to interview the Johnsons last night. He wanted to know what kind of impression they had gotten and if either of those scumbags had admitted to anything. That would make his life a lot easier.

"Agent Smith," was the answer on the phone.

"Hey, Smith, it's Agent Booth. I wanted to see what you could tell me about that call last night." Booth paced along the floor of the lab. He glanced into Bones' office and saw that Zack was sitting across from Lance on Bones' couches.

Smith let out a deep breath. "Weird couple, Booth," he replied. "I told them we were there because we were worried about the well being of their foster son, and the father rolled his eyes. I don't think they even realized Lance had left that night."

"Did he act angry at all?" Booth walked away from Bones' office so he didn't seem like he was spying.

"Both of them did. They didn't seem surprised though. They insisted Lance was a compulsive liar and troublemaker who resented them for not being his real parents. They kept saying he was lucky they had kept him around for so long."

"How credible do you think?"

"Sounded rehearsed." Smith sounded like he was walking through the FBI offices. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you found the exact same lines in any other records of someone getting close to finding out. It's a pretty typical cover up I've heard before; I tend to take it lightly. Does the kid have a social worker you can call to check if he's had any actual disciplinary problems?"

"I'll check." Booth glanced up at the platform, where Bones was pacing; it looked like she was talking to herself. "Thanks for you help."

"You got it," Smith said before hanging up.

Booth slid his phone back into his pocket and started to walk over to Bones' office to talk to Lance. When he reached the door, he saw Zack rushing in his direction and slinking out the door. "You okay, squint?" Booth asked, stopping the intern with a hand on his shoulder.

Zack blinked a few times. "He beat me," he mumbled.

"What?"

"He beat me. At chess. Only Dr. Brennan has ever beat me before." He sounded surprised, but also slightly angry. "I need to get back to work."

Booth watched him walk away and was laughing when he entered Bones' office. He spotted Lance sitting on the couch with a chess board on the table in front of him. Booth vaguely recognized it was Bones'. Lance looked smaller than he should, curling in on himself as he did.

"I hear you're giving Zack a run for his money as our resident boy genius," Booth chuckled, sitting down across from Lance where Zack had been before.

Lance was definitely blushing now. "He asked me if I wanted to play. I didn't mean to—"

Booth waved his hand. "It's alright. Someone needed to put him in his place." He sat back to relax in his seat. "You like chess?"

Lance nodded. "Do you play?" He hesitated, then forced a smile. "I could beat you too, if you want to play."

Booth noticed that the psychology textbook was forgotten on the couch next to Lance. He was glad to see the kid actually doing something he enjoyed. "No," he said regretfully. "I don't know how to play. I would though." He reached for his notepad so he could ask Lance for his social worker's number.

Lance licked his lips. "I could… I could teach you. If you want," he said quickly. He started to put the chess pieces back in their starting places.

Booth recognized this moment for what it was. Lance was trying to connect with him, and Booth had enough experience in his career to know better than to pass up this opportunity. "Sure. I've always wanted to learn." He could call the social worker later.


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note: So as some of you may have noticed, I'm updating a lot lately. There are two reasons: 1. I'm soooo bored and 2. I reread this story and I fell back in love with it. I had so many new ideas floating around in my head that I had to get out. This chapter is one of them. It was supposed to be a short snippet of another chapter but it got really long (longer than most of my chapters) so I just had to kind of shove it in somewhere as it's own chapter.

Exactly three people had found out about the Johnsons before Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth.

The first was his first grade teacher. Ms. Matthews had been fresh from her credential program, ready to make a difference in the lives of the young children who passed through her classroom. She adored Lance, who was quick to do whatever she asked in exchange for her telling him that he was a good kid.

He had been living with the Johnsons for a year at that time, and he was beginning to become adjusted, in the strange, destructive way that would ultimately allow him to survive the next decade of his life. He was accustomed to constantly being belittled, so to be given the little praises Ms. Matthews sent his way was a luxury and gift that Lance wold do anything to attain.

Ms. Matthews was not a dumb woman. She recognized a child in need when she saw one, and she hadn't gotten to become a teacher without taking a class on recognizing the signs of mistreatment. This was why she paid such special attention to Lance. It helped that the boy latched on to her at the first sign of affection. She let him remain in the classroom at lunch and recess, and he took this opportunity to talk her ear off about everything under the sun. He was withdrawn around the other children, but around her, he blossomed.

It wasn't until halfway through the year that Lance showed up with an obvious bruise on his shoulder. When he stayed in at recess and started to talk to her about the colony of ants he found in his backyard, she took her opportunity. "Lance, it looks like you have an ouchie there," she said.

Lance hurriedly straightened his shirt so the collar covered the bruise. He didn't respond, but he suddenly became very interested in the carpet.

"Can I take a look at it?" she asked, moving closer to him and setting her hand on his shoulder where, on the other side of his thin shirt, a purple bruise marred his skin.

Lance shook his head. "I just fell. It's fine. It's okay. You don't need to look," he responded, speaking so quickly that his words all jumbled together. He shrugged her hand away and started to walk over to his desk.

"Please, Lance?" Ms. Matthews pleaded. She went for the low blow. "Will you be a good boy and let me take a look?" She knew he was desperate to prove himself to her.

Lance came back over and resignedly stared at the floor while she pushed his shirt over. The bruise was in a very definitive shape of a hand. She had to fight back the urge to look visibly disgusted, knowing that Lance would think it was directed at him and not at the person who had done this.

While she was investigating the bruise, she noticed a few lines of raised skin that peered over his shoulder. She followed them and realized they ran several inches down his shoulder. It took her a second to recognize the marks for what they were, and when she did, she yanked her hand away and gasped.

Lance looked up at her with worry.

She choked back her horror and put her hand back on his shoulder, hoping the gesture was comforting. "Thank you, Lance. You did good."

Ms. Matthews did everything she was supposed to. She reported what she'd seen to the school nurse and the principal, who took the accusations to the proper higher authorities. Lance was pulled out of class the next day.

At the end of the day, Ms. Matthews received a call from the principal, asking her to come see him. When she entered his office, Mr. Thomas looked overwhelmed and exhausted. He motioned for her to sit across from him. "The foster mother came in," he began. "Lance is claiming that the… scars are from an old foster family. And there's not really anything we can do about a bruise unless Lance is willing to talk about it." He paused to look at her reaction. She tried not to react at all. "The foster mother is threatening to sue if we press on the scar issue, because it could be traumatic for the boy."

Ms. Matthews swallowed and allowed herself time to process what she heard. "So… we're not doing… anything?"

Mr. Thomas shrugged and tossed the pen he had been holding across his desk in no particular direction. "If we do anything regarding the scars and it does cause trauma, and we end up in a lawsuit, you could lose your job here. And a bruise is hardly any evidence unless somebody manages to get Lance to talk about it. But, like I said… lawsuit."

Maybe in a different life, Ms. Matthews was a little braver. Maybe she would have told herself 'to hell with a lawsuit', and she would have sat Lance down and shown him that he could talk about it, that he deserved better. Maybe she could have gotten him out of there. He could have found better foster parents, maybe even a permanent home.

But Ms. Matthews was not brave.

The second person to find out was Michael. Michael and Lance had the kind of friendship that formed because one party decided they were going to be friends with no input from the other. No matter how much Lance fought to be alone, Michael continued to show up at his side to keep him company. It wasn't like Michael didn't already have plenty of friends already; he just liked Lance.

Michael and Lance had freshman PE together. Lance had never been very athletic; Michael was, but he was also very lazy. So they hung out together in the background of every sport they were forced to play for a grade.

When they were forced to do laps, Michael and Lance alternated between light jogging and just flat out walking. Michael took this time to talk about anything he could think of. Lance had developed into a very quiet boy, more content to observe than to talk or act.

"Do you think you could get out of the house to go see that new horror movie?" Michal asked. He squatted down to pick up a rock. He dusted it off on his PE shorts and aimed it at the head of the boy jogging in front of them.

Lance grabbed the rock from Michael's hand and tossed it to the side. "Maybe. It depends what kind of mood Melissa is in tonight."

Michael heaved a dramatically large sigh. "Just text me when you know then." He looked at Lance expectantly. "Unless you wanna just sneak out?" He grinned as if trying to win Lance over. And he was really; he was annoyed that his best friend was such a rule follower when Michael could walk out of his front door while grounded and nobody would even notice.

Lance rolled his eyes. He'd just spent a week being deprived of access to food at home, and he wasn't about to go there again for at least a little bit. "You know I can't," he said, pretending to be actually annoyed with his friend.

Michael accepted defeat, and they spent the rest of their walk in comfortable silence.

When they all filed into the locker room, Lance began to weigh the pros and cons of taking a shower. Taking a shower in the locker room was easier said than done for him. In an attempt to keep any of his peers from seeing his back, Lance either didn't shower at all or waited until everybody else had left and just accepted that he would be late for this next class.

It was a hot summer day, and Lance had a crush on a girl in his next class, so Lance settled down on a bench to wait for everyone to leave so he could shower. Michael was used to this and, assuming Lance was nervous being exposed because he didn't like his body, didn't question it. He showered and left with everybody else.

It would have been like every other day if Michael hadn't realized he had accidentally taken Lance's history book. He turned on his heel and walked back into the locker room, assuming Lance hadn't had time to hop into the shower yet. But he was wrong, and the first thing he saw upon reentering the locker room was the scar-riddled back of his best friend.

Michael stared in shock for a long few seconds. Lance was washing his hair and hadn't yet noticed that Michael had come in.

Eventually, Michael cleared his throat and watched as Lance spun around, throwing his arms around his stomach. His mouth dropped open, unsure of what to say, trying to think of a way to explain what Michael had seen. Michael just licked his lips and quietly said, "I accidentally took your book." He set it down on the bench where Lance's backpack was.

Lance stared at him for a long time. "Oh. Thanks."

Michael nodded and hurried out of the locker room. He spent the entirety of his next class trying desperately to block out the image of how destroyed Lance's back looked. Some of the scars were older and some looked fairly recent, but they all had come from the same source, and Michael was terrified to admit to himself that they looked like whip marks.

They looked so wrong on Lance's body. Michael had never seen whip marks anywhere other than on actors playing slaves in Civil War era movies. They were used to horrify the audience, to show the absolute cruelty of slavery, how dehumanized its victims were. And then there they were, in real life, right in front of him, on the back of his best friend.

Michael set his head down on his desk, tuning out the lecture of his math teacher. Normally he would at least pretend to be listening, but nothing felt important today except for the fact that someone had whipped Lance. Lance, who was so eager to please everyone around him, who only spoke out of turn when he was too excited about something to physically hold it in any longer. Teachers loved him, students turned to him for help, and someone had whipped him.

Michael hadn't cried since he was a little boy, but he suddenly felt like he might cry right here in math class.

The girl who sat next to him looked down at him. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he snapped back, and she drew back, rolled her eyes, and turned back to the teacher.

When Michael and Lance sat down together for lunch that day, Michael wasn't the first to speak. He couldn't think of anything to say that didn't seem ridiculous after what he'd seen this morning.

"How do you think you did on that test in English?" Lance asked, picking the onions of his school issued sandwich. He looked wary, unsure if things were okay between him and Michael.

"Shitty," Michael responded. "I should've let you help me study."

They continued to talk like nothing happened, and when Lance texted him that night to say he couldn't get out to go see a movie, Michael forwent his usual guilt trip and just replied, "That's fine."

The third person was a girl named May. She was in the chess club, and she was pretty in the sort of way that people only noticed after knowing her a long time. She was smart, not as smart as Lance, but smart enough to help him keep his mind occupied and provide mildly interesting chess games.

She and Lance had hung out a few times, and she had tagged along for lunch with him and Michael a lot, before Michael smacked Lance on the arm and said, "Dude. She's into you."

Lance gave him an incredulous look and glanced across the cafeteria at where May had dashed off to say hi to her older, senior sister. "You think?" he asked. He had never imagined the possibility that a girl would have crush on him.

Michael rolled his eyes. "Duh. She doesn't hang out with us because she loves my mean humor and burping."

So Lance asked May to go on a date with him. Michael had an early birthday and he was able to drive already, so he dropped them off at the movie theater with a warning to "not get too crazy, you kids". May let Lance kiss her halfway through the movie, and Lance ended up making out with a girl for the first time in his life. When the movie was over, they both barely noticed until people starting getting up and walking past them.

They continued to go on dates, and Lance texted her constantly. Any random thought he had reminded him of her. And she did the same thing. They never made it official, but Lance was beginning to suspect he was in a relationship.

And it was just when they were getting to the best part that it all came crashing down.

May's parents weren't home often, and she was mostly under the supervision of her older sister, who hardly counted as supervision. Because of this, May and Lance got to spend a lot of time alone in her room, under the pretenses that they were watching movies. It took a few months of this for them to get to the point of May sticking her hands under Lance's shirt and attempted to pull it off.

They'd talked a couple times about going all the way, but it hadn't happened yet. Lance was a teenage boy who was more than willing to have sex with May, and she seemed pretty enthusiastic, but in the face of it actually happening, Lance freaked out.

He grabbed her arms to pull her hands away from him and backed away, nearly falling off May's bed.

She looked hurt and wrapped her arms around herself. "What's wrong?" she asked, licking her lips.

Lance swallowed heavily. "I'm sorry. I just… I don't… I mean, I do. Want to, I mean." May was watching him in confusion. The hurt on her face was transforming into confusion. "I want to do it"—stop mumbling, idiot, he told himself—"I just." He looked at her in desperation, unsure of how to explain. She gave him no help, continuing to look expectant of answers. "I don't want to take my shirt off."

May crinkled her nose. The look she gave him wasn't exactly what he had hoped for, but it was better than completely turning away from him. "I guess that's fine."

So they had sex, and Lance kept his shirt on. When he left afterward, he didn't feel quite as triumphant as he thought he would have.

The next time, May stuck her hands under his shirt again, and again he stopped her. "Come on," she whined. "If I'm gonna get completely naked, you should too. It's not easy for me." She huffed.

Lance hesitated. He wondered how she would react to seeing the mess that was his back. Michael had seen last year, and he'd gone on like nothing had happened. Maybe May would be the same way. Maybe he could show her his scars without the fear that he constantly harbored about them being seen.

So he gave in, and he didn't resist while her hands made another attempt at removing his shirt. When she had gotten it off, her hands settled on his shoulder blades. He tensed and waited for her to notice how uneven the skin was. He knew when she realized because she yanked her hands away, looking shocked and disgusted. She moved on her bed so she could see his back, and he heard her take in a deep breath. "Lance."

He closed his eyes, but all he could see behind his eyelids was her disgusted expression. He would have taken any reaction except that.

"Lance. What…?" She seemed unable to articulate what she really wanted to say about his scars. Her hand settled on his back then drew away quickly, as if the blemishes had burned her. He turned to look at her and she still had that same expression on her face.

"I should go," Lance said, unable to handle the scrutiny of his back. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head. May made no attempt to stop him leaving, so he hurried down the stairs and out the front door. He walked home, fighting back tears.

She didn't text him at all that night, and he didn't text her. What would he say to her anyway? "Sorry I'm disgusting"? At school the next day, she didn't come over to talk to him when he walked into their homeroom, so he didn't make an attempt to repair their connection. He could take a hint.


	9. Chapter 9

(A/N) Hey again guys, how’s it hanging. I got a bit distracted from this story for a hot minute there (but not for as long as I usually do oops). I thought of an idea for a one shot for Veronica Mars that kept distracting me, so I pounded it out but I want to rewatch some episodes before I publish it so I know everything is accurate. So maybe that will be coming. If you know anything about my writing and Veronica Mars, who can probably already guess who it will focus on, so if you’re interested you can look forward to that at some point. Anywayyy… I’m not very happy with this chapter, but I’ve spent a lot of time agonizing over it. I really don’t know when the next update will be. I leave for my first year of college in like 24 hours?! so yeah. 

Booth thought this was going pretty well. He was picking up the basics of chess faster than he thought he would, and Lance was kind of coming out of his shell. He’d talked more than Booth was used to. And even if it was all about chess, it was a solid conversation.   
“Alright, I’ve got a job to get back to,” Booth eventually, regretfully said, the sentence blending into a light groan as he stood up from the low couch.   
He looked down at Lance, who was still holding a pawn in his hand. The kid looked up at him with a blank face, and Booth felt a pang of disappointment. He had gotten some smiles and laughs out of Lance while they were playing chess, and he had hoped that would continue, but he should have known better.  
“Do—” Lance stopped himself. He avoided Agent Booth’s gaze and started putting the chess pieces back on their spots on the board. Booth noticed that his hands were shaking.   
“What’s up?” Booth asked. He reached into his pocket to pull out his phone, remembering that he needed to get Lance’s social worker’s phone number. He decided to just put in the extra effort of pulling Lance’s file rather than asking Lance. He was scared of doing anything that might put the kid on edge, and Booth had no idea what could do that, so he decided to just err on the side of caution.   
Lance tried to put down a rook, but his unsteady hands set it too close to their corner, and it toppled to the carpet. He ducked down quickly to get it, and when he looked back up and made eye contact with Booth, he was blushing.   
“Um”—he stuttered through his words—“do I have to stay in here? Or can I like walk around?” He licked his lips. “I mean, I’m at the Jeffersonian Institute. There’s a lot to see. It’s fine if—”  
Booth hesitated. Just outside the doors of Bones’ office was a lot of evidence being investigated. If Lance came into contact with any of it, it could come into question when they were trying to convict the murderer. He did feel guilty keeping the kid cooped up all day though.   
“I can’t let you wander around because of the evidence and stuff,” he said regretfully. He looked at the disappointed face of the teenager sitting before him. “But I’ll get you out of here for lunch, okay? I know it must suck to be sitting here all day.”  
Lance just shrugged. He tapped his fingers on his knees.   
Booth tried his best to stop feeling guilty. “And until then…” He glanced around Bones’ office. To him, this was by far the least interesting part of the lab. Bones was the only person who rarely brought her actual work into her office.   
He walked up to the bookcases behind the desk. “You could do some light reading…” He pulled a random book down. “There’s… The History of Reproductive Behavior in North American Societies?”  
Lance laughed. “Sounds riveting. You may never be able to tear me away once I crack that open.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, giving Booth a tiny glimpse at the boy’s sense of humor. He chuckled once more, lightly, looking down at that ground. Then he glanced up and met Booth’s eyes. “I have homework anyway. Thanks though.”  
Booth nodded slowly. “I guess… I guess if you wanna wander a little bit, that’s fine.” He was being too lenient. He got like this with Parker too, bending rules that he had instated in an effort to make his kid smile. “Just don’t touch anything,” he added quickly.   
Thanks. I’ll try not to destroy evidence,” Lance joked with a grin that looked half-forced.  
Booth laughed then excused himself. He stepped back out of the office and dialed the extension of one of the newer agents stuck doing desk work. “Hey, Lahey,” he greeted, returning to pacing around the lab. “I need you to get someone’s phone number for me.”  
“You got it.” Lahey was so eager to please, Booth was kind of dreading when the excitement of the FBI wore off on him.   
“The kid, Lance, who’s the foster brother of the victim I’m investigating right now? I need his social worker’s number. It should be pretty easy to find. Also, if you could see if you can find any record of disciplinary issues for Lance? Either with the law or at school?”   
Lahey was mumbling mhms the entire time Booth was talking. “You got it,” he said. “Hang on a second, and I can probably get you that phone number now…” Booth could hear the clicking of computer keys and crinkling as Lahey stuck his phone between his shoulder and ear. “two oh two, five five five, oh one six two.”  
Booth scribbled the numbers down quickly. “Thanks, Lahey. Let me know when you know more about his criminal background.” He hung up and started dialing the number given to him.  
~.~  
Jack had been staring down his microscope for probably too long when he sensed someone approach his office. He looked up and sat back, assuming it was Angela and preparing to say something clever in hopes of impressing her.   
“Hello—oh.” Jack froze. The person standing in the doorway of his office was not the gorgeous artist, but a lanky teenager boy, who had been staring at a snake recovered from the crime scene and looked over upon Jack’s greeting. “You’re not Angela.”  
The boy crinkled his eyebrows. “No, I’m not.” He glanced quickly around the office before going back to watching Jack. “I’m sorry. I was just looking at your snake. He’s…”  
Jack scowled. “She’s not mine. She’s evidence.”  
“Oh.” The boy didn't seem to have anything else to say. He looked away from Jack.   
“Who are you?” Jack demanded. He liked the familiarity of his lab. He knew everyone here; he knew he could trust them to be around his evidence and discoveries. New people upset his entire environment.   
The kid stepped back, hovering just barely outside of Jack’s office door. “I’m Lance. I’m—uh…” He waved in the general direction of the rest of the lab. “Dalia’s foster brother.” He paused, and Jack’s face must not have looked very satisfied because Lance hastily added, “I’m—uh—staying with Dr. Brennan until the case is over. She brought me here.”  
Jack decided that he really needed to get an update on the case.   
“Oh—okay.” Jack glanced down at his microscope for a second. He just wanted to get back to work.   
Lance cleared his throat then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I can go. Sorry. I—uh…” He turned quickly to leave the office but ended up face to face with Angela, who had been walking toward the office, beaming with a smile. “Oh,” he breathed out.   
Angela continued to smile. She looked from Lance to Jack. “Who’s this?” she asked, with genuine curiosity. She shifted her gaze back over to Lance, looking him up and down, before winking. He blinked a few times, blushed, and looked pathetically over at Jack.   
Jack stood from his chair and peeled off his gloves. He, apparently, would not be getting his work done anytime soon. “This is Lance,” Jack said. “He’s staying with Dr. B.” He tried and failed to keep the incredulity out of is voice.  
Angela didn't say anything for a long moment. Then she said, “Lance, you look very young—”  
“Oh my god, for the case, Angela!” Jack interrupted, trying to block out the image of Dr. Brennan having an affair with someone as young as the embarrassed looking boy before him. “The vi—Dalia was his foster sister.”  
Angela nodded slowly and took one step back. “I’m gonna go check in on the case with Brennan,” she said, moving closer to the doorway. Jack nodded to indicate that he thought that was a very good idea. and she was gone in an instant.   
Lance was left staring at Jack, looking entirely unsure of himself.   
Jack started to speak, preparing himself to say something about how Lance should probably go find somewhere else to explore, when he received another visitor, this time in the form of Booth.   
“Hey, Buddy,” Booth greeted, clapping his hand on Lance’s shoulder. Lance tensed a little, and Booth removed his hand. He looked over Lance’s head at Jack, raising one eyebrow. He continued to look at Jack while he spoke to Lance. “Time to get you out of here for some lunch, huh? Come on. We gotta go tear Bones away from her bones.”  
He started to walk away, and Lance looked at Jack one more time, smiling the smallest smile Jack had ever seen, before rushing after him.  
.~.  
The diner felt like just one more place where Lance didn't belong.   
Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan both had regular orders, and Booth chatted with the waitress like she was an old friend. They sat next to each other while Lance sat, hunched over, across from them.   
Lance stared down at the table for a long time before he got bored and started looking around the diner. It was very typical of a DC diner, he thought. It didn't seem to be anything special, but Agent Booth had been beaming with excitement as he had explained that this was the place for a good meal. Lance decided that Agent Booth must just know what he was talking about, and it was probably better not to question it.   
When Lance turned his attention back to the two adults in front of him, they were bickering. He felt his hands tighten against each other as they sat in his lap, wringing anxiously.   
“I didn't mean to insult you, Booth,” Dr. Brennan was saying, one hand on her coffee cup and the other gesticulating as she spoke. “I was just saying—”  
Agent Booth shook his head. “Bones. Just… stop.” He rolled his eyes and turned away from her. He gave Lance a look that was probably supposed to mean ‘she’s always like this’, but Lance thought communication through facial expressions was too unreliable when it came to people he barely knew.   
Dr. Brennan stared at Booth for a long moment, her mouth pulled tightly closed. She seemed to be thinking. Eventually, she took a deep breath. As she lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, she said, “I’ve made an interesting discovery in the bones.”  
Booth put both of his hands out in front of him in frustration. He gave Dr. Brennan a warning look, and Lance found himself tensing in preparation for another quarrel. Dr. Brennan swallowed her coffee. “What?” she asked. “Do you not want to know—?”  
Agent Booth made a small motion with his hand toward Lance, who was not supposed to notice but did nonetheless. After staring at Agent Booth with a blank expression for entirely too long, she eventually nodded and said, “Gotcha. I’ll tell you later.” She looked over at Lance and forced a very strained smile.  
Subtlety was not necessary for crime solving apparently.   
Their waitress approached the table and set plates of food in front of them. “Here you go, honeys,” she said as she did it, and Lance had responded with a “thanks!” before he could stop himself. She looked over at him and smiled. He ducked his head.  
“Lance, you should be able to go to school tomorrow if you’d like,” Dr. Brennan said conversationally as she picked up her silverware.   
Lance looked up at her quickly. Thank god. Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan were nice, but Lance’s entire being had been thrumming with tension all day. He needed to just be somewhere he wasn't constantly being watched. At school, he could disappear into the crowd and just simply be so quiet that no one bothered with him. At the lab, it had seemed like everyone was scrutinizing him more than the evidence they were working on.   
Agent Booth turned to Dr. Brennan, continuing to seem frustrated with her. “Bones, we talked about this. Until—”  
“You’ll have an arrest warrant by the end of the day,” she said defensively. “If you had let me talk, you would know that.” She went to work cutting her sandwich in half.  
For some reason, Lance realized he was smiling while looking awkwardly down at his food then glanced up at Booth’s reaction. The look of (still) frustrated resignation on Agent Booth’s face was rapidly becoming familiar, a staple of the partnership that Lance was bearing witness to.   
He went back to looking at his food and realized he should probably be focusing on eating it. Especially now that Agent Booth was looking at him for support against Dr. Brennan.   
But Lance was very firmly not going to allow himself to be dragged into this. Taking sides seemed like the kind of thing that would only lead to taking sides again later on, in another inevitable argument. And he couldn't do that; he was kind of starting to like both of them.


	10. Chapter 10

Author’s Note: I warned you guys it would be a while between updates. I’m sorry, but I’m a biology student at a UC. I don’t really get a lot of free time. But I was able to find a couple hours today to pound this out so here you go. Expect the next chapter in mid-December unless my classes suddenly decide to let up a little. Don’t worry, I really really want to see this story through to the end, no matter how long it takes me. After this chapter, it’s going to delve more into the Booth-Bones-Lance bonding we’re all here for. (Oh! College is great though! I love love love it here!)  
.~.   
Michael arrived to pick Lance up from the apartment he was staying in early on Thursday morning. Lance had texted him the address the night before after shyly asking if Michael could come a little bit farther to pick him up for school. It was a nice complex, the kind that required a passcode just to get in to the parking lot, and even in the nice car his parents had bought for his sixteenth birthday, Michael felt out of place.   
Lance walked out from the lobby’s front door and caught sight of Michael’s car quickly. He shuffled over. He got into the car and let out a long breath.  
“So…” Michael shifted the car into drive and started to back out of the spot he had stopped in. He glanced over at Lance. “What’s up?” He tried not to sound sarcastic, but he couldn't think of any other way to sound without being too serious and making Lance too anxious to talk.  
Lance sighed. He let his head fall back onto the headrest then lifted it up to let it bang back again. “Dalia is dead”—that much, Michael had figured out on his own by the FBI presence—“and they arrested Frank last night.”  
Michael wanted to be able to say that he felt a little bit of shock, but he would be lying. He hated Frank, hated him with a deep anger that he didn't even think Lance was capable of. Lance would never be as angry as Michael thought he should be, so Michael had to hate for him. He wouldn't put anything past Frank or Melissa, the only people in the world who had it in them to be cruel to someone like Lance.   
“Sorry, man.” Michael kept his eyes firmly on the road as he started on the route to school.   
Lance didn't respond. He just shrugged then turned his head to stare out the passenger side window. Michael glanced over to see that Lance’s fists were tightly clenched in his lap, a sure sign of his nerves.   
“You doing okay?” Michael asked. Lance just shrugged in response. “Do you need me to do anything for you? I could forge a pretty good note to get you out of school today,” Michael continued to press, but he was met with another shrug.   
He huffed and reached out to turn the radio up. He saw the minute jerk of Lance’s body as Michael’s hand shot out. Lance really wasn't that jumpy of a kid, considering, but there were times when he got like this, and it made Michael’s stomach hurt. “You didn’t sleep last night?” Michael asked, continuing with messing with the radio.   
Lance shook his head, but he still said nothing.   
“I think your fancy psychology books call this, what you're doing, repression, bud,” Michael grumbled, turning the car off of the highway into the neighborhood their school was in.   
Lance chuckled. “That’s a totally different thing, Michael,” he said, cracking a little bit of a smile. “Repression is what happens when you basically force yourself to forget something bad.” He turned to face Michael. “You’d know that if you took psychology with me.”  
“And miss the wonderful opportunity of being an office assistant for class credit? Never,” Michael quipped.   
As they entered the school parking lot, a few people took notice of them and stared, but for the most part, everybody seemed to be ignoring them as much as usual. Word had gotten around that an FBI agent had come to talk to Lance on Tuesday, and then Lance hadn't been there on Wednesday. Lance wasn’t exactly popular, but he was well liked enough that most people didn’t take too much pleasure in gossiping about him. In fact, most of the people talking about it had tacked on phrases like “do you think he’s okay?”.   
Michael parked slowly, giving Lance enough time to unlock his seatbelt with shaking hands and get a firm grip on his backpack. Michael pulled his keys from the ignition. As he started to open the driver’s side door, he was stopped by Lance saying, “Wait.”  
Michael turned to him, pulling the door shut. “Dude—” He started to spew the “everything is gonna be okay” speech he had prepared in the car on the way to pick Lance up earlier that morning.   
Lance shook his head. “Does everyone know why I was gone yesterday?”  
Michael shook his head. “I mean, your foster sister got murdered so that’s kind of a thing, but they don’t know you got removed from Frank and Melissa or anything.”  
Lance licked his lips and nodded. Then he quietly said, “If it gets out that Frank got arrested”—Lance took a deep breath—“do you think people will believe that he did it?”  
Michael had to pause to blink a few times. “The dude’s a psycho,” he said before his filter could stop him. “Anyone who knows you well enough for it to matter knows that.”  
Lance smirked. “And by anyone who knows me well, you mean just you, right?” He seemed to be sitting up a little more, curling in on himself a little less.   
“And don’t you forget it.” Michael stepped out of the car before Lance could say anything else, and a few seconds alter Lance was scrambling out to keep up with him.  
.~.  
Booth jumped when Bones burst into his office. He had been intently looking at the evidence they had presented to Caroline the day before to get an arrest warrant for Frank Johnson. He was wondering if it would be enough to convict. Arrest warrants were anything but a guarantee of conviction. He wondered if having Lance testify about Frank’s violent tendencies would help.  
“Have you talked to him yet?” Bones asked, walking up to his desk.   
Booth shook his head. He closed the manila folder to cover up the files he had been looking at. “I wanted to review everything before, just in case he trips up. Do you want to observe?”  
Bones nodded. She crossed her arms across her chest and looked down at Booth’s desk.   
Booth gave her a few seconds to say whatever was bothering her, but when she said nothing, he started, “Bones—”  
She shook her head. “Let’s go question this guy.” She was already heading out of Booth’s office before he could say anything else.  
They headed to the questioning room, where Frank was already waiting. Bones went to the other side of the mirror. Gordon Wyatt was there, watching Frank with his head tilted to the right. Booth followed her into the room and greeted Gordon. He put his earpiece in then headed around to talk to Frank.   
“You seriously think I killed her?” Frank asked as soon as Booth had opened the door. One of his wrists had been handcuffed to the chair, but he gesticulated with the other.   
Booth nodded, putting on a bemused expression. “I do. I do think that you killed her.” He threw his manilla folder down on the table and lowered himself into his seat. “I think you stood on her throat until she suffocated.” He scowled and shook his head, gambling that Frank was the kind of man that would crumble under other’s disgust.   
“I bet you didn't realize how long it takes for someone to suffocate,” he continued. Frank didn't say anything, but his fists curled up and his jaw clenched. “Did you stop when she passed out and then realize she wasn't dead? Or did you know better? No, I don’t think you’re that smart. You probably thought it was gonna be a lot easier, like in the movies. Is that why you didn't even use your hands? Not strong enough for the real thing?” He leaned back in his chair as he asked, watching Frank expectantly.   
Frank swallowed. “I didn’t do it,” he said, his voice faltering a little.   
Booth had been expecting more from this guy. They already knew he had a violent temper, but Frank seemed to be holding himself together, even if he was tense and obviously angry about being arrested.   
Booth sighed exaggeratedly. He opened up his manilla folder. “Listen. The shoes used were your size, and there were particulates that really only could have come from your garage. There was no forced entry into your room, and there was no sign of a struggle. When we see that in my business, we always look straight at the family.”  
Frank scoffed. “I don’t see you arresting Lance though. Instead you’re listening to every lie he tells you about me and my wife.”  
Booth heard Bones grumble into his earpiece that Lance was taller than Frank so his feet would be far too big. He repeated this to Frank, who just rolled his eyes.   
Booth closed his folder and leaned forward a little. He met Frank’s eyes and held his gaze. He felt the familiar anger rise up in him every time he was confronted with a child killer. He reigned it in and quietly said, “Listen, man.” He fought to keep his voice level as he remembered that on top of being a child killer, Frank was also an abuser. “If you confess, we can talk to the prosecutor about a plea deal. You don’t have any prior convictions, and we can argue it was aggravated. But you gotta admit to it. There’s not gonna be a plea deal if you drag us through a trial when we all already know you did it.”  
Frank, surprisingly, didn't break the eye contact with Booth. “I didn't do it.”   
“So you’ve said.” Booth shook his head and rose from his seat. “I tried to help you,” he said, picking up his files then turning to leave the room. He stopped. “If I was you, I’d be a little more scared about what Lance told us,” he said, hoping that Frank’s mind would supply the worst possible scenario and think Lance knew something about the murder. He walked out of the interrogation room.   
.~.  
Lance usually ate lunch in Mr. Finley’s room on Thursdays with a few other chess club kids who couldn't wait for Tuesday meetings. Michael had Key Club on Thursdays, but he was going to skip it to eat lunch with Lance, who was thankful for it when he remembered it was the chess club who had seen him being talked to by Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan.   
Lance had Psychology right before lunch so he just stayed in his seat when the bell rang. Normally he would have hustled over to the cafeteria to get some lunch before the line got long, but he hadn't been hungry all day, and he knew if he tried to eat, it would taste like sand.   
Michael slid into the seat next to him smoothly. “Hey, bud.” He pulled a sandwich in a ziplock bag out of his backpack and tossed it at Lance, who didn't react fast enough and had to pick it up from the ground.   
“Is this for me?” he asked, holding it up.   
Michael nodded. “It has the secret ingredient,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.   
“I hope that means THC,” Lance grumbled, opening the ziplock bag.   
“Love. It means love, Lance.” Michael shook his head in mock disappointment. He sighed. “No, I put in that weird chipotle ranch you like. Martha still buys it just for you. Sometimes I swear she’s more your nanny than mine.”  
Lance smiled as he took a bite out of this sandwich and choked it down. His stomach lurched, but he tried to hide the disgust his face was trying to morph into. He tried to psych himself up to choke down another bite of food.   
He glanced up to see Mr. Finley walking over to him, sporting thinly hidden concern. He gave Michael a look that obviously called for some privacy, and Michael hurried away, mumbling about using the restroom. Mr. Finley sat down in the chair Michael had been sitting in a few moments earlier. He smiled at Lance. “How are you doing?” he asked sincerely.  
Lance looked down at the sandwich he clutched in both hands. He knew Mr. Finley genuinely cared about how he was doing and wasn't trying to torture him, but Lance was getting really sick of people asking him how he was doing. Obviously he was having a shitty week, but he was going to be fine. He’d always been fine. It wasn't like the rest of his life had been peachy keen and he was suddenly getting this thrown at him. He had always coped by being silent, and he was attempting to do that now, but nobody was letting him.   
“Fine,” he muttered. He took a bite out of his sandwich. He felt nauseous, but he thought having food in his mouth would be a good excuse to not speak.   
Mr. Finley nodded. He smiled at Lance. “If you need anything, even if you just need to talk, you know I’m here, right?” he asked. Lance noticed he was putting his hands on the desk in that way adults always did when they were trying not to upset him.   
Lance nodded. “Thank you,” he said quietly after he had forced himself the swallow his food. “I’m okay though, really.”   
He made eye contact with Mr. Finley, who nodded and stood. Mr. Finley clapped his hand on Lance’s shoulder. To his own surprise, Lance didn't jolt at all. He didn't look at Mr. Finley as he walked away, but he did glance over a few minutes later to see the teacher casually pretending to not be staring at him.   
When Michael returned, he didn't ask what Mr. Finley had wanted, and Lance was grateful for that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeey guys! I promised a new chapter in mid-December, and here we are, in mid-December, with a brand new chapter for you guys. The perks of long breaks between chapters is it gives me a lot of chances to pick up ideas and mull everything over. Then when I sit down to write, I never get stuck. It’s nice. Anyway, I finished my first quarter at college and now I’ve got a month break so I should probably get at least one, if not two, more chapters out before I go back in January. {ps: I promise I’m not exaggerating how busy I am, I got an A+ in a weeder course, so yeah I’ve been working pretty hard this quarter} Okay, I’m done talking about me. Enjoy!

Bones hurried out of the observation room to follow Booth as he stomped away from the interrogation. He saw the expectancy in her face; she was waiting for him to tell her what he thought, to clue her in on the things she would never be able to pick up on.  
When they reached his office, Booth tossed his folders down on his desk and slumped down into his chair. He took a long, deep breath before admitting, “I was kind of hoping he would just confess.”  
Bones frowned. She stood before his desk, completely still. “I’ll make sure my team keeps working to pile up evidence for the trial,” she said, and Booth nodded, knowing that was the closest thing he would get to comfort from her.  
“Guys like him normally just crack right away,” Booth said.  
As he was speaking, Dr. Wyatt walked slowly into the office, having taken his time leaving the observation room. The older man made himself comfortable on a chair by Booth’s desk and said, “Are we entirely sure he’s guilty?”  
Booth set his jaw and gave Dr. Wyatt the best frustrated glare he could muster. He didn’t need the shrink blowing up his entire case for him, and he was about to say so when Bones spoke for him, “Dr. Wyatt, with all due respect” — she faltered, biting back a remark that Booth knew would probably have been a jab at Wyatt’s career — “my evidence says he did it.”  
Dr. Wyatt held up his hands in surrender and half shook his head. “I’m not here to tell you your science is wrong, Dr. Brennan.” He looked between Bones and Booth, as if expecting to be interrupted. “It’s just that what I saw in there was a man who’s either a very good liar or who didn’t do it.”  
Booth did his best not to scoff. He knew when people were lying to him. That was his thing. Frank Johnson had been lying to him, and Booth was not going to let him get away with. “Well let’s just hope our jury isn’t as gullible as you are,” he said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.  
Dr. Wyatt offered no argument. Instead, he just sat back in his chair and seemed to resign himself not being a part of the conversation anymore.  
Booth fought back the urge to roll his eyes at the psychologist. He unlocked his phone and scrolled through his notes to himself until the found the phone number for Lance’s social worker. He hadn’t gotten the chance to call her yesterday in the surprise of suddenly having the evidence for an arrest warrant.  
He pulled his desk phone closer to himself and dialed the phone number Agent Lahey had given him yesterday. A woman picked up after the second ring, “Maria Jimenez.”  
“Hi, Ms. Jimenez. My name is Agent Seeley Booth with the FBI. I’m calling about Lance Sweets. I believe you’re his social worker?”  
Booth watched as Dr. Wyatt stood and left the room, finally understanding that there would be no more discussion of Frank Johnson’s imagined innocence. Bones took his spot in the chair by Booth’s desk. She scrolled through some document on her phone.  
Maria took a moment to respond. Then she said, “Yes, I am. What is this concerning? Is everything alright?” She sounded genuinely concerned, unlike a lot of social workers Booth had encountered over the years. He wondered absently how someone so concerned could let abuse fly under the radar for twelve years.  
“I’m sure you’re familiar with the situation with Dalia Lane,” Booth said, and she made an affirmative sound. “I’m currently assigned to the investigation and we’ve arrested Frank Johnson, Lance’s foster father, for the murder.” Maria made a shocked noise and it sounded like she opened her mouth to say something, but Booth kept going. “During our investigation, we had to remove Lance from the home because we discovered that Lance was being physically abused.”  
“Oh—okay. Okay.” Maria sounded frazzled. Booth could hear papers ruffling and doors opening and shutting. “Where is he now? I’m coming.”  
Booth had to give her credit for dropping everything to come handle this. “He’s been placed with Temperance Brennan, my partner, here in DC until we were able to call you to find a more long-term placement.”  
Bones’ head shot up and she turned to face Booth. She had a confused look on her face, and Booth shot one back at her. She started to whisper something, but he put up a hand because Maria was speaking. “Are you at the FBI building?” she asked.  
Booth was still trying to figure out what Bones looked so upset about as he responded, “Yes, and Lance will be coming here when he gets out of school. How soon can you be here?”  
Maria told him it would take her at least three hours to take care of everything she needed to get done today and get over there, and he gave her instructions to find his office before they hung up. As soon as the phone was on its base, he turned to Bones. “What’s wrong?”  
“Am I not allowed to keep Lance?” she asked.  
Booth took a moment to absorb what she had asked him, but still the only response he could formulate was, “What?”  
Bones huffed. “I’m a foster parent. I figured he would stay with me until he was eighteen.” She sounded so thoroughly confused about the situation Booth was starting to wonder how little knowledge of the foster system it took to become a foster parent.  
“Bones, I wouldn’t have forced you to take on raising a kid,” he tried to explain. “Now that the investigation’s slowed down, we can have his social worker find a permanent place for him.”  
Bones looked at him like he was the one who wasn’t understanding. “My apartment a permanent place for him,” she said simply, and when Booth opened his mouth to try to explain it to her again, she said, “I want Lance to stay with me. Permanently. Long term.” She watched Booth expectantly.  
“Oh.” Booth tried not to frown. He had never imagined Bones with kids. Putting Lance with her had been an easy solution in the moment, but he had never imagined Lance staying there. Then again, Lance was almost an adult, and smart enough that he could hold conversations with Bones. If Bones ever was to raise a child, it would be best if it was one like Lance.  
And Lance seemed to like Bones. He had acted relieved when she offered to take him rather than have him placed in an emergency home. Would it be cruel to take him away now? Had Lance thought of this as a potentially permanent situation? Was Booth the only one thinking that this wasn’t the obvious solution?  
Booth looked down at his desk then quickly made eye contact with Bones, who actually seemed enthusiastic about the idea of taking Lance in. “I’ll try to make it happen,” he promised.  
~.~  
Lance clutched the letter printed on FBI stationery in his hand. He wondered if it would even be allowed to clear his absence. The only things he knew that cleared absences from school were illness and doctor’s appointment. Oh--and deaths in the family. Michael had missed a full week without consequence when his older brother died in sophomore year. But was having the FBI flip your life upside down an excused absence?  
Michael followed him into the office and leaned against the counter while one of the receptionists approached to see what Lance needed. Lance held out the note, signed by Agent Seeley Booth and adorned with the FBI crest. It asked for his absence to be cleared by the school as he had been “assisting in an FBI investigation.” As the receptionist—Amy, his memory supplied—took the note from him, Lance lamely said, “I was gone yesterday.”  
Amy smiled at him and nodded. Lance could tell from the way her smile strained at her eyes that she had already heard he was gone and was trying to seem sympathetic. She skimmed the note before pulling up the attendance program on her computer.  
Lance glanced over at Michael, who was looking aimlessly around the office, reading the corny motivational posters and outdated flyers stuck on the pin board walls. He looked down the hallway that led to the administrative offices then raised one eyebrow. He glanced at Lance for a moment then turned back to staring at the offices.  
Lance was about to ask what he what he was doing when he heard exactly what had caught Michael’s attention. Coming from the head secretary’s office was the unmistakably terse sound of Melissa’s voice.  
He felt his heart rate pick up despite his best efforts to tell himself to remain calm. He chewed on his inner cheek as he turned back to Amy, silently willing her to finish inputting his information as quickly as possible so he could flee the office and not have to encounter the source of the voice he had learned to dread.  
Michael turned back to him, his face showing that he was sharing in his distress. “What is she doing here?” he hissed, and Lance heard Michael’s personal brand of hatred-fueled anger in his voice.  
Lance shrugged. “I don’t know. Unless she’s making one last ditch effort to destroy my life.” He had meant for it to be a joke, but it came out bitterly, and Michael grimaced when Lance had intended for him to laugh.  
Lance turned away from his friend and found himself staring at Amy as she worked. Tension started to work its way into his body, and he suddenly realized he was grinding his teeth. He forced himself to relax his jaw, but it was tight again moments later.  
“Thank you so much for your help,” Melissa was saying, but he couldn’t catch the rest of the conversation she was having. Lance made another attempt to stop grinding his teeth and instead kept his mouth slightly open as he fought to keep his breathing steady.  
Michael slowly edged toward the closed door that separated them from Melissa, licking his lips as he attempted to eavesdrop. He bounced on the balls of his feet, getting closer and closer to the door until he nearly had his ear pressed against it.  
Just as Amy was saying, “Alright, all taken care of—”, the door to the head secretary’s office opened and Michael skittered back until his back hit the other side of the hallway.  
Lance ducked his head, putting his hand up in what he thought looked like a casual gesture that coincidentally covered his face. He pretended to be engrossed by what Amy was saying to him, but watched Michael out of the corner of his eye. He figured that just not drawing attention to himself had helped him enough with Melissa and Frank that it might work now.  
Melissa walked out of the door, followed by the head secretary, Ms. James. She immediately noticed Michael, who stood up as tall as he could (taller than Melissa, Lance noticed) and met her gaze unflinchingly. (Lance reminded himself to never question again why he trusted Michael with his life).  
Melissa forced a smile, but Lance knew that it was way too fake for anyone to be fooled by it. He gave up on trying to blend in and watched the staring match.  
“Michael,” Melissa said tersely. She tilted her head.  
“Bitch,” Michael responded, as casually as if he was saying her name. Lance felt his jaw drop, and he saw Amy whip her head around, suddenly realizing how tense the atmosphere in the room had suddenly become.  
Lance had to fight all his instincts to run over and stand between Michael and Melissa, to defuse any argument that was about to erupt. He didn’t want to see how ugly this could get, between two people who were absolutely ruthless when angry.  
“Mr. Smith,” Ms. James warned. There was a notable lack of shock in her voice that made Lance think Ms. James didn’t entirely disagree with Michael. Lance wondered again what they had been talking about. 

Melissa just rolled her eyes and turned to walk away. She noticed Lance immediately, and he thought for a moment that she probably had some superpower that allowed her to find him anywhere, immediately. He never had been able to hide. “You,” she bit out.  
Lance drew back and curled in on himself. (The image of Michael standing taller in front of Melissa popped into his mind, and a pang of jealousy ran through him.) He let his hands play with the frayed edge of his sweater. He swallowed heavily.  
He expected her to launch into a tirade about his shortcomings, but instead Melissa just headed toward the door. As she twisted the door handle, she looked over her shoulder and sneered, “I hope you’re happy.”  
Lance stared at the door long after she had walked out of it, still waiting for her to come back and tear him down. He felt his hands shaking and shoved them into his pockets.  
His attention was finally pulled away by Ms. James calling his name. She forced a smile as he turned to face her. “Would you like to add new information for your home address and emergency contacts? I understand that you’ve moved foster homes.” Her voice was soft, and Lance realized that meant she was probably on his side.  
Is that what Melissa had been doing here? Taking their information off his records? Didn’t she have enough to be worried about without searching for every single detail that left him connected to her in any way.  
“I—uh—do I have to? I haven’t been permanently placed yet so…”  
Ms. James smiled at him. “That’s fine. Just come see me when you’re ready.” She ducked back into her office.  
Lance turned to Amy. “Am I good? My absence is fine?” She nodded wordlessly, and Lance got out of the room as quickly as he could, with Michael trailing behind him.  
.~.  
Lance hopped out of the agent driven SUV, thanked them for the ride, and walked in the FBI office building. As he stepped into the elevator, mulled over the question of if he should tell Agent Booth about what had happened at school that day.  
On one hand, he felt like Booth would expect him to report any interactions with Melissa. On the other, it wasn’t like Melissa had sought him out. They had just happened to be in the office at the same time, while Melissa had been actively working to remove herself from his life.  
Lance knew he probably wasn’t going to be able to get himself to bring it up anyway. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it earlier either, when Michael had been ranting about what a heartless bitch Melissa was and Lance had just hm-ed and ha-ed his way through the conversation.  
The elevator dinged that it had reached his floor, and he resigned himself to not bringing it up. Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan had enough to worry about already without him blowing the whistle about every little thing that happened.  
He noticed Maria immediately after stepping off the elevator. She was walking down the hall, clutching her briefcase close while chattering to Agent Booth. Agent Both saw him first, waving him over.  
“Maria, hi!” Lance said as he hurried over to them. He didn’t know where the two had been headed, but they immediately turned back to Agent Booth’s office when he joined them.  
Maria pulled him into a side hug and looked at him fondly. “Hi, Lance. How are you?”  
He raised one eyebrow at her. Every time she saw him, that was the first thing out of her mouth, but right now it seemed like the entire situation spoke for itself. She nodded slightly when he didn’t respond. She had that look like she really wanted to talk with him deeply, but she knew better than to try.  
Dr. Brennan was already in Agent Booth’s office when they got there. She smiled at Lance when they entered. “So did Booth tell you you’ll be staying with me?” she asked abruptly.  
Lance paused. He felt like he was staring at her, so he moved his gaze to Agent Booth, who closed his eyes slowly, breathing out a frustrated sigh. Then Booth smiled and opened his eyes. He looked to Maria.  
Maria took a moment to realize that was a motion for her to speak. She looked at Lance, also smiling. “Dr. Brennan has offered to be your permanent foster parent until you turn eighteen. Would you like to stay with her?”  
Lance looked back to Dr. Brennan, who looked surprisingly anxious, waiting for him to answer.  
Would he like that? Yeah, he supposed he would. He knew Dr. Brennan; he knew that she was a good person. She had even kind of acted like she cared about him. He wondered what had driven her to volunteer to keep him. He knew it had been convenient for them during the investigation, but now what was her motive? She obviously didn’t need the money she would get from the state. Could he allow himself to believe that she actually just liked having him around?  
Lance bit his lip. Whatever her reason was for offering to take him, her apartment had been the safest place he’d known in twelve years. He could handle whatever downfalls came with living with her, if life there continued to be anything it had been the past few days.  
Eventually, he nodded. “Yeah. That would be great.” He forced himself to make eye contact with Dr. Brennan. “Thanks.”  
She smiled at him in return. “Good.” Then she looked between him, Booth, and Maria for a few seconds. She eventually settled her gaze back on Lance. “I should probably take you grocery shopping.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi.


End file.
